Matters of Approval

When we were growing up, there was usually a right and a wrong answer for almost everything. What is the proper way to read? Sitting upright with the book held at eye level approximately 1.5 feet away. What is the right way to sit? Never with your back hunched over. What is the right amount of rice to serve? Always more than just one scoop. What is the amount of food properly left behind on one's plate? Certainly never just a morsel or a spoonful.

These answers, fed to us in bite-sized aphorisms, ranged from the mundane to the weighty. For some of the more serious issues, the questions were never posed because the right answers were presumed to be understood. For example, our parents never asked us, What kind of a person would you like to marry? They never asked, Do you wish to marry a white person? What about someone of Hispanic background? Or someone black? We understood that we were to marry a Korean.

I'm not sure how we first came to that understanding. Maybe the time when my father consoled his friend whose daughter was dating an Indian. My dad's friend muttered, "An Indian," as he spit on the ground. Or the time I told my mom that my Korean-American friend was married to a Japanese woman, and she exclaimed, "How could he do that to his parents!" I have a vague recollection of my parents taking us aside after these incidents and explaining how Koreans should be married to Koreans.

Later, my mother clarified that a Korean-American -- as opposed to a Korean who grew up in Korea -- would be better for me since I was so head-strong. A couple of years after I started working, she further clarified that he should earn as much as I did -- and have an advanced degree as I did, lest he be humiliated in the eyes of his wife.

We painfully learned the consequences of making the wrong choices. Like the time my brother brought home a wrong girlfriend. She seemed right at first. She was Korean-American from a decent enough family. Seemingly polite enough. But for some unspoken reason, my dad decided that she was not right. Not right for our household, even if my brother had apparently decided that she was right for him and I silently thought she was good for him in many ways. But my father felt otherwise. When she came over, my father refused to acknowledge her, even when she greeted him politely and did all the proper things. Sadly, she did not last long.

This process of making decisions by viewing all variables through the disapproving eyes of our parents wasn't limited to just dating. It dominated almost all decisions in our lives, including school selection, our career choices, where to live. When I was applying to colleges, there were only a handful of colleges that were acceptable to my parents. A wide assortment of Yale, Harvard, or Columbia. That was about it. Maybe they would have been okay with Princeton. When I did not get accepted into any of those, my father insisted that I would have to attend a state school, even though I had been accepted into the University of Chicago, my first choice. It became an uphill battle to try to convince my father -- and perhaps myself -- that I wasn't a complete failure because I had not been accepted into those three or four schools deemed acceptable in his eyes.

Most decisions in our lives seemed to be a matter of approval or disapproval. Either our actions pleased our parents or they did not. As children, I don't think we ever stopped to consider the difference between our actions and our being -- or the difference between approval and love. When they approved of something we did, we beamed in their eyes and felt loved. When they disapproved, we felt spurned and rejected.

I've discussed the notion of unconditional love with some of my Korean-American friends, and we often conclude that we do not believe in such a concept. Maybe because we grew up in households where love was never verbalized. Where the only semblance of love was approval, which peaked and waned with the choices we made.

Focusing so much on my parents' approval often cast a shadow over other factors that we should have considered, either more carefully or in their own light. Most decisions became for or against them -- but we rarely considered the question of were they right for us? Maybe we did ask those questions, but often they were so cluttered with worries and anxieties about our parents' reaction that I wonder if they ever got the attention they deserved.

I think my parents must have grown up in a time and a culture where children did not make decisions. At least not to the degree children do here. I remember my mother once marveling over how American parents stop to ask even toddlers their preferences on things, including what they want to eat or where they want to sit. She rued that she had not done so with us -- that she had always simply told us what to do and how to do it.

I sometimes wonder about this part of my upbringing. Even now, I often find it difficult to make decisions. And the decision making process becomes easier when I have an opposing force -- that kicks me into an emotional and reactive mode. I have been trying to think of ways to extricate myself from this overdeveloped need to gain approval -- or to fight against disapproval. To be a person with more integrity to keep her in balance.

And I think about ways in which I raise my son -- to allow him to be his own person without needing to meet my approval at every turn. To help him to develop the skills to assess and meet his own needs -- without feeling crippled by the needs of others. And to fortify him with the assurance that he stands on solid ground even when we disapprove -- that our love does not peak and wane with the school he attends or the girl he chooses to date.

For my part, I intend to speak clearly when I speak of love -- and softly and sparingly when I disapprove, if I have to disapprove at all.

Wasting time

A few months ago, I transferred my cases to a trial lawyer -- a real trial lawyer, with more than 175 trials under his belt, not a glorified paper pusher like me (and most big law firm partners I worked with over the years).

The transfer came after weeks of overwhelming stress. We have a nanny who comes about 20 hours a week, and I easily had enough work to fill up 40. As a result, Jeff and I had been - for a series of weekends - negotiating how to split the weekends so that we could each get done all that we needed to. The first weekend of February, I worked most of Saturday, and Jeff had most of Sunday, even though we took a break in the middle to go out for lunch and a stroll -- to celebrate my birthday. When he asked me how I wanted to celebrate, my response was, "I really don't have the time to celebrate right now."

I had days when I was so overwhelmed with work that I couldn't work. I never had those before. I would sit down in the front of the computer and my mind would be reeling with the list of tasks in front of me. Unable to focus. Touching this paper and that, piling them up, and then reshuffling them again. When I worked at firms, I remember having a lot to do at times, but I never shut down with stress. A partner once commented what a cool cucumber I was under pressure, and that's how I remember myself. I don't know when she wilted.

Ever since I handed off my cases, I've had the luxury of having free time. Little T goes down for his nap around 2pm these days -- and happily snoozes until 6pm. Four whopping hours. Along with the luxury of free time has come the luxury of wasting them. After I've picked up his toys, thrown the clothes in the laundry, folded the ones in the drier, and filled the dishwasher, I look for other tasks to keep me busy. On some days, I read a book from cover to end in one sitting. On others, I watch a movie - and then immediately start another. There are days when I surf the net and then stare out the window.

Why haven't I been writing more? Well, the last couple of months, I've been blissfully napping. Overtaken by overwhelming drowsiness that comes with pregnancy. I'm about to start my 20th week of pregnancy -- and so thrilled with the news that this one is a girl. The last three pregnancies, including two miscarriages, have all been boys, and I assumed that we were only capable of making little men. I was almost ready to tuck away my dream of shopping for little dresses, adorning a little one with frilly hats, and making time for girl to girl talks. It never felt so much better to have beaten the odds.

The Short Visit

We returned late Wednesday night, or rather early Thursday morning, from a 15 hour visit to San Francisco. The visit was wedged between two 9+ hours of driving - from San Diego and back. It was meant to be a normal visit - a 1.5 hour flight in the morning and a 1.5 hour return that night with a short deposition in the middle of the day. That is until Jeff found out that he had to be in the Bay Area as well on the same day for his work. We realized it was more complicated when I remembered that I had to be in Los Angeles the day before, and we couldn't figure out how I could be back in San Diego in time for Jeff to make the last flight out of San Diego (a woefully early flight of 6:50 p.m.). We have a part time nanny, but she goes to school in the evenings, and we are not together enough to have lined up a back-up babysitter for such emergency situations. Hence this brilliant idea of driving 18 hours in a 34 hour span.

So on Tuesday morning, I boarded Amtrak's Surfliner for Los Angeles at 6:45 a.m. with my suitcase of exhibits for my deposition. That afternoon, at approximately 3:00 p.m., as I bombarded my witness with my endless list of tedious questions, Jeff left San Diego to pick me up in LA with our little guy strapped in his carseat in the back. After wading through LA traffic, he found me waiting at a Starbucks after my depo. I greeted him with a big cup of coffee for his driving, and we continued to drive and drive and drive -- with a quick stop at In-n-Out after the Grapevine -- until we found ourselves in our familiar terrain, our home that no longer was home. But it still felt like home, even the East Bay, where we had hardly spent any time except to visit our close friends and for the occasional visit to Ikea -- but the signs leading to Berkeley, the lights on the Bay Bridge, and even the potholes on the roads felt like they were mine in some way.

When we checked in at the Hyatt Regency at 1:00 a.m., the guy asked if we needed directions around the city. Oh, no, we said. We used to live here - until we moved away four months ago. He, a native of some unmemorable state like Arkansas or Idaho, raved about the Chinese food in San Francisco. And suddenly, I couldn't stop thinking about the Chinese food in San Francisco.

I stayed up to finish preparing for my next deposition and made the mistake of sitting in front of a mirror with lighting that worked far too well. I noticed all my gray strands as I sat typing in my questions -- and vanity required that I spend at least 30 minutes at 3 in the morning pulling out all my unwanted signs of aging.

At 7:00 a.m., Jeff left for his meeting in Silicon Valley. After showering and getting dressed, I hung out with little T at Starbuck's across the street where I had spent many mornings before work in my days before little T. As we sat there, me in my suit and he in his stroller, he munching on a blueberry scone, me sipping my grande latte, I felt conspicuous -- a mom with a baby in the midst of all those careerists.

Suddenly, I thought of all my friends who must be on their way to work at that very moment and perhaps even passing the very Starbuck's we were sitting in. I regretted the short visit and wished we had set aside some time to see our dear friends that we missed. I impulsively left messages with a few who worked within a 2 block radius, knowing how busy they must be and knowing they would not likely be able to see us on such short notice. At 8:25, we rushed back to the hotel room when little T pooped and waited for my friend who had agreed to watch him while I took the deposition.

At around 9am, as I tried to finish preparing for the deposition, I was surprised by an email from one of the friends I had pinged, and half an hour later, she was knocking on the hotel room door. These visits after a long stretch are never as satisfying as they are meant to be because there is never enough time to say all that you wanted to say or to give as firm as hug as you meant to give. But they are good enough placeholders for the next visit, the next hug.

Seven hours later, after the deposition, after the other meetings, and after talking on the phone with friends who were sick with a cold or couldn't make it to the city that day, we packed our stuff back into the car and started the drive out of SF. It was a mad rush to beat the rush hour traffic, to be ahead of the onslaught of cars pouring out of the feeder ramps. And that was our focus until we were well past Livermore, and miles away from our old home and the friends we didn't get a chance to see.

Our House With a View

Here is the ridiculously amazing sunset I saw tonight from our balcony:



And another photo I took about a month ago:



Before we moved to San Diego, Jeff and I talked about the adjustment period we'd have to go through. We had both lived in the Bay Area for over a decade and had built up so many friendships during that period. That was the hardest part about moving away. We adored our friends out there. But we also talked about the kind of life we'd like to have long term and the unlikelihood that we'd be able to live in San Francisco long term given the bad public schools out there. We also thought about the draw of retiring in a place like San Diego, instead of somewhere in Silicon Valley, which would probably have been where we would have ended up had we not moved down here. And we agreed that if we had to make a move and go through the difficult transition of making new friends and growing our roots, we might as well do it now in our relative youth than doing it right upon retirement.

So that's what we are doing now. Trying to find some softness in the earth where we can put down our roots. And it will take a little time to find that. And to start feeling like this place is home. It's hard not to love this land when we are surrounded by such beauty. Almost everyday, we say to each other how lucky we are to live this privileged life as we do. With the kind of view that we have.

And I know in time, I'll make some new friends out here. Apart from Jeff's parents, I know five people out here. I'm sure in time, that number will grow. I remember how it felt when I first had little T and I didn't know any other moms in my neighborhood. By the time we left, we knew most of the new moms in the neighborhood and would often run into them wherever we went. I'm hoping we can build that kind of life out here.

Home Alone

Jeff is out of town for a few weeks, and I'm at home alone with little T. Our nanny worked until 3pm today, and as soon as she was done, we rushed to T's music class down on La Jolla Boulevard. Only one other mom/kid showed up, but the class was delightful just the same.

As we were leaving, I got that dreaded feeling inside as I thought of returning to an empty house. A little taste of those panic attacks I've had a couple of times in the past, where the emptiness of the house feels overwhelming, the looming hours frightening. I strolled little T down the street in the direction of the park we usually walk to. As we neared a frozen yogurt shop, I saw a mom with a stroller seated in front, and I dropped in, hoping that she may be up for a chit chat. But no such luck. As we approached, she started packing up her two little boys and rolled away. I still got my frozen yogurt, which I shared with little T and thought about where to go next. But it was already nearing 5pm, and the sun would go down soon. And the little guy needed his bath, having missed it last night. He was already showing signs of fatigue, so I reluctantly strolled us home.

When I walked in, the closed windows felt stifling, the silence, too thick. I busied myself getting T ready for his bath. As I did, I turned on my iTunes, and Elvis' cooing filled the silence. Bathing T, feeding him, and then chasing him around for a bit filled the following couple of hours. As soon as he went down, I busied myself folding the laundry and then sat myself down with a glass of red wine and my computer.

The Roomba is buzzing downstairs, and Sherlock is already conked out on his pad. I'm in my glasses, with my make-up wiped off. I'm ready for bed, and it's only 7:30pm. I usually don't stay up late anyway, but I don't know if I can fall asleep this early. It's ridiculous because I have a shit load of things to get done, and I'm not sure how I'll finish everything by their deadlines next week. But right now, I can't seem to care very much. I feel immobilized.

I don't know what is wrong with me. I'm guessing that at the heart of this pseudo-panic is a fear of being alone. I had always thought that solitude was something that never bothered me. If anything, I used to relish it and often felt that I didn't have enough of it. I remember how in college and in the years after, I wanted to be left alone more so that I could have more time to read. And now, I can't seem to spend a night alone without feeling panicked.

I imagine at the root of it is some deep-seeded fear. Something I am aware of, but haven't really pieced together. Loneliness has always been a central theme in our family. Growing up, my parents repeatedly mentioned that we were alone in this country, that we had no one we could rely on for help. We had no relatives here, very few family friends. No one we could call if some tragedy befell our family. We had to rely on ourselves and no one else. It was a call to attention. A warning to stay on the alert, lest we let our guards down and suffer.

To prove the case, our family lived a lonely existence. On Christmas and New Year's eves, we often stayed late at our parents' dry cleaners, watching others pick up their evening gowns and tuxedos for the parties they were planning to attend. When we turned off the neon sign and locked the front door after 7pm, the streets were usually empty and the other stores around us closed except for the lone liquor store down the street.

On the holidays we celebrated, we never celebrated with anyone else. Who is there to invite, my parents asked. Besides, they would say, it's just extra money to spend. Why spend more money to feed others?

For several years, I worried about who would attend my parents' funerals. Who could we call? No relatives. Very few friends. No church members. No neighbors. Just our small nuclear family. Who would stand with us to remember their lives? Make note of them and mark their existence on earth?

My dad always admonished that all we had were each other. There's no one else, he would say. We're all we have.

Despite his admonishments, we have done a poor job of staying cohesive as a family. And I wonder if my panic attacks didn't start after my fight started with my sister, the person I always relied on to be there for me.

In some moments, this world seems like a fragile little place, where all I have are Jeff, my little T, and my parents. These four people out of all the people in this world. Who can we really rely on to be there in times of need? But not just times of need, because I'm sure I have friends I can call on if something dire came up. People whose lives don't turn on a different axle, who don't live separate lives except for occasions when our lives intersect for this or that social gathering.

Sometimes I wished we lived in a small village, where everyone knew everyone else's business, when you can amble down the road to find a kin. I must be longing for more meaningful human contact, something I have had less of since we moved down to San Diego. It's just not enough to post some tidbit on Facebook every now and then.

Happy holidays

It has been a relief to be caught up with holiday planning for the past week or so. To have a list of things to accomplish, to focus on what to give to others, to think about all the people to remember. And I always love planning for get togethers and pouring over cookbooks. We had Jeff's family over today, and we made a bunch of new dishes that I'm adding to my keeper list - along with some all time favorites, like hot crab dip. My favorite new recipe was a potato and swiss chard gratin from the NYTimes. We also made a chocolate pecan pie, which turned out absolutely yummy. Our main course turned out so-so (black cod with oyster mushroom ragout), but we had enough other tasty dishes that it hardly mattered.

Our little T received so many incredible presents from his relatives. It is heart-warming to see how he is doted on -- and how he's getting indulged as much as any child could. He is one lucky child, and I hope he grows up appreciating all the sweet love flowing in his direction.

I hope all of you out there had a wonderful day with your loved ones. Happy holidays.

Big Shoes to Fill

Of course we hope our little T won't be burdened with having to fill the shoes of all of our hopes/expectations if he turns out to be an only child, but we think he can rise to the occasion. Not to say we won't be trying again sometime soon...

This time

I had a feeling about it. I told Jeff a couple of nights ago. I don't think it's good.

He told me not to worry, we've had these little scares before. Don't you remember when we saw Dr. Moon? That turned out to be nothing. Maybe it's nothing again.

Maybe, I said.

But I sensed it, in the way my body felt less weighted and more alert, as if I had taken claritin for head to toe.

In the morning, I called the doctor's office. They asked if I could come in that morning, but having a brief to finish, I made the first available appointment for the morning after.

Then I went about the day as any other. I bounced along to circus music with little T as he played and replayed the ball popper we had recently purchased for him. I clapped along with him each time he applauded after feeding himself a spoonful of apple sauce. And cautioned him with my no, no, no's after he tried to mount Sherlock reclining in the sun.

When little T went down for his nap, I scrambled to finish my brief and prepare it for filing. In 45 minutes, I was done, just as little T screamed awake from his bedroom. It is always the days when I need him to nap when he naps the least.

After, we trudged over to the post office and stood in a line that stretched out the door to mail my brief to the Court and the service copy to opposing counsel. In that time, I chatted with a lady who was expecting her four grandchildren for Christmas as little T prattled away to a girl waiting in line behind us with her mother.

From there, we headed to Pho Time, where I ordered a seafood pho and little T waved at all customers who walked past our table. While I sat, I felt the little rumblings in my belly -- a slight tightness with a sense of bloating. And I wondered, but tried not to. I told myself it was only because I was focused on it so much that it felt different.

When we returned home, I wondered why my belly felt flatter than it had a few days ago. Maybe just my imagination. Maybe.

When I went to bed, I hoped that I wouldn't start cramping. I fell asleep in fetal position, cradling my belly, protecting it from some unknown force.

In the morning, Jeff asked me, how are you feeling?

No cramps, so maybe it's ok?

But when I went to pee, I knew. It was not ok. And after I showered and put on my make-up, I went back to bed and let Jeff hold me.

So we went through the routine again. Going to the doctor's office to be told what we already knew. I told the ultrasound technician -- apologetically as if I were wasting her time.

Well, let's see how it looks in there, she responded.

And the few seconds of searching, searching for that faint bleep on the gray screen -- the faint bleep we had seen just ten days earlier. As she moved the device over my belly, the image of the baby appeared -- the fuzzy head, the glob of torso and limbs. Still in there, in tact. As if it were still alive.

Seeing the little body made me break down, even though I had not planned to. I had planned to be ok this time.

And I was ok -- more ok than I had been before. Because this time, we came home to little T, who now waddles all over our house, opening this door and that. Who makes baby signs of the elephant, crocodile, and monkey. And asks for all sorts of food with grunts and little fingers. And plants big open mouth kisses on our cheeks, our foreheads, our noses, wherever his mouth happens to land.

For the past couple of days, I've had fleeting moments of resentment. Why can't I have it easy for a change? Why does it have to be some god damn trial each time? Why do some women just breeze though, but I have to have the worst always befall us?

But then I caught myself. It hasn't always been the worst. We have little T, and that wasn't the worst. By any measure. And seeing him waddle around makes me realize how much of a miracle he is. Me, with my decrepit eggs, being lucky enough to have landed at least one good one, one good enough to produce a perfect little being like him.

Jeff and I talked about how we would be ok without another. With just little T. How he fills us each day with so much pride, wonder, love, and a bunch of other feelings that have no name but cram our chests up to our necks.

As Jeff trailed behind little T as he picked up this and that in our walk-in closet, Jeff said, "Oh, little T, do you know how happy you make mommy and daddy? Do you know how much we love you?" And I thought about all the people who grow up in this world questioning the extent of their parents' love, and I wondered how that is possible. How is it possible to be a parent and not express the love you have for your child on a daily basis? Do people stop expressing their love for their children when they turn surly twelve? Do parents run out of time to hug their children and cover them with kisses when they have more than one child? What happens out there that so many children grow up yearning for their parents' love?

My D&C is scheduled for tomorrow morning. We plan to wake up at 5:15 to leave the house by 5:45 to get to the hospital by 6:30 for the 8:30 procedure. What a pain in the ass. If someone can come up with a procedure to sort out the bad eggs from the good, I'm sure he'll have investors lined up out the door. I guess at some point, I'll be too old to even worry about whether I have any good eggs left. And then I'll have to reserve all my smothering kisses for little T, who I'm sure will be perfectly grossed out by my behavior when he enters his teens. But there are worse things in life, right?

Changing Directions

I'm thinking of changing careers. Well, I have been thinking about it. For the past ten years, in fact.

I've always wanted to write, so about a year ago, I dabbled in some magazine writing for a few months. It was a decent experience. I got to meet and talk to a bunch of notable people and see my name in print. It was hard to justify the time I put into it, though, for the pay I received. ($200 for an article I spent 2 weeks interviewing, organizing, and writing.) And writing about other people didn't feel as satisfying as writing about my own life. Not that I'm so self-absorbed, but I think writing is a very personal process for me. It helps me to sort out my thoughts, see aspects of my life in a different light, find the words and definition for some of my experiences. Magazine writing just didn't do those things for me -- and why should it? I'm starting to think that I don't need to write professionally -- not full time anyway -- at least not right now. I'm very content with the writing I do on this blog (when I do write, that is). And even though I sometimes feel the angst to do something bigger with it, I'm not quite sure what that is yet. So with my writing, I think I may just keep it at this level for now -- without the pressure to make it into something bigger than it needs to be.

I've considered the idea of doing litigation part time -- which is more or less what I've been doing for the past two years. It's not a bad career. The pay can be quite generous and I can work somewhat flexible hours. I also work from home without a secretary or a paralegal, and have found it to be much more manageable than I had expected. The problem, I'm finding, is that it really cuts into the state of mind I want to have to be a mom. Because it's so adversarial, I sometimes get nasty emails or letters in the middle of my day when I'm playing with little T. It casts a dark shadow over me -- even if it's for thirty minutes -- and I resent the emotional intrusion into my time with my little guy. I never minded before I became a mom, but now I feel the need to protect my state of mind so that I can be the kind of mom I want to be.

Lately -- maybe because I had such a great experience with my therapist -- I've been thinking about going to get a masters in psychology and doing some kind of counseling. I understand that it's a two year program, and I may have to spend an extra year doing some type of internship. In part, I'm drawn to the idea because I think it would help me personally to study some of those subjects and to understand it -- and myself -- better. I think it would also help me to be a better mom and wife. But I also like the idea of talking to people in a very meaningful way and helping them see themselves or their lives from a different -- and more constructive -- angle. I'm not sure if I'm equipped to do something like that. My therapist was just so amazing at keeping track of all the details that I just spewed out to her -- and so generous in speaking to me from a position of warmth. With my background in litigation, I'm more equipped to be confrontational and rule-driven, rather than supportive and warm.

Of course, I am also concerned about starting a new career when I am almost 40. It will take me a few months to prepare for the GREs and apply to schools. Once I apply, I think I have to wait until the following fall to start. So I will most likely start my program when I am almost 42. That seems quite old -- but then I think of people who were in law school with me -- people who had full careers before. Walter Pincus - the journalist for the Washington Post - was in the evening program at Georgetown when I was there, and I believe he was in his 60s at the time. And then I also think about continuing with law simply because I started in it, and it seems like a horrible waste of time. I tend to think of my last 12 years practicing law as a waste of time. I've justified it to myself, and it hasn't all been negative -- but on the whole, I feel that I have very little to show for my time being a lawyer.

I think it would be horrible to have lived my whole life being just a lawyer. I don't want that to be my obituary. Somewhere inside, there is a part of me that is very ambitious. To do something meaningful with my life. Not to discount being a mother or a wife, but to do something in a larger sense. Sometimes when I read other people's wikipedia entries, I think, I could have done that. And then I tell myself that I still can.

In my case, I think being a mom and now being pregnant with no. 2 heightens my sense of urgency in figuring out my career. I don't want to fall into the trap of being so bogged down with child care -- and prioritizing my children's needs ahead of all else -- that I forget to think about this before it feels too late.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly what it is that I would like to accomplish in my life. A part of it is driven by a fear of living meaninglessly -- something I thought my parents did when they worked day in and day out in a dry cleaners, without any humor or acceptance -- simply for the sake of making a living. And it is hard to pinpoint exactly how one goes about finding meaning in one's work. Maybe it's about finding something that aligns with one's values.

I've decided to take Jeff's suggestion, though, and talk to any many people as I can who are therapists -- and see whether they enjoy their work, and what they like about it. If anyone out there is a therapist, I would love to pick your brain!

Crossing My Fingers

Strangest turn of events. I am pregnant again. This time, after hardly trying. We had talked about trying for no. 2 -- and after much deliberation, mapped out the best time to start trying. When the little guy is 8 months old? No, that's too soon. How about at 10 months. Maybe that's better. You think that's good? Don't you? You don't think that may be a little too late? I'll be almost 40 by then. Maybe 8 months is better. Yeah, maybe that's better.

Little T's eighth month came and went. And we weren't really doing much about it. Work was busy, and I wasn't looking forward to being bogged down with pregnancy slumber. Three months later, we still weren't trying. Which seemed to matter little at the time. Except that I missed the pounds that came off from breast feeding.

Now, a month after T turned one, I find myself pregnant. I hardly even kept track of my periods -- and the other day, I suddenly realized that I hadn't had my period the whole time we've been in San Diego. And we've been in San Diego for exactly one month.

So I rushed out and bought some pregnancy test sticks. And tested myself -- and was amazed to find myself pregnant. Not that I had such difficulty getting pregnant the first time around. I had more difficulty staying pregnant. But here I am -- pregnant once again.

The first thought that ran through my mind was how horribly I've been eating for the past months. Hot dogs. Daily cups of coffee. Occasional glasses of wine. Hardly any vegetables -- except bits of olives, mushrooms, and onions on my pizza. And not a single vitamin. For some reason, my diet had been worse than usual. I'll blame it on the move and my hectic schedule.

I remember reading about how spina bifida is determined during the first few weeks of gestation. And how I am low on my folic acid.

I started popping my vitamins again like an addict. I made a big vat of creamed broccoli soup -- for me, little T, and No. 2 -- which I downed along with celery sticks and carrots. I stopped the coffee cold turkey, and caught myself as I started shoving soft cheese and crackers down my throat. And warned Jeff that I would no longer be picking up bottles of pinot noir on my trips to Whole Foods.

It's time to get back on the regimen -- whatever it takes to ensure the well being of this little person growing inside of me. And cross my fingers that this one is a keeper.

Heading South

A month ago, we celebrated our little guy's one year birthday. We rented a hall along the Bay, invited our friends, decorated the place with paper lanterns and custom made posters of the little guy's past 12 months, and laid out enough food and cake to feed all the smiling faces. We put the little guy in a hanbok and made him pick from an assortment of objects - following in a Korean tradition that I know little about -- more for kicks than anything else. When he picked the piggy bank, symbolizing a life of wealth, and the crowd broke out in laughter, we knew we have an entertainer on our hands.

The day after, we loaded our station wagon with our luggage, bottles of water and leftover cake, an umbrella stroller, and enough toys to last the upcoming drive. I packed our little guy in his car seat, and my parents piled in. We left Jeff behind to deal with the moving company - and all the leftovers in the fridge until he was ready to follow suit a couple of days later.

Around 11am, we started driving. Away from the home I had known for the past six years, away from the city I had loved for the past eleven. We drove straight down 280 and then to 101, past Daly City where I had regularly stopped for Hawaiian plate lunches, past the airport I had often hovered over before landing, past all the exits that led to houses of our friends and acquaintances. We stopped in Paso Robles for lunch and proceeded to Santa Barbara for the night. The next day, we kept driving, until we reached La Jolla.

For the past month, I have been calling La Jolla home -- from a rental that we have for the next six months while we try to figure out whether to become Southern Californians for good. Out of our master bedroom upstairs, we overlook the Pacific -- a view more stunning than any I have ever known. We are surrounded by palm trees and people in flip flops. Guys and gals tote surf boards, as casually as if they were carrying laptops. On the freeway, we drive past convertibles -- and monster trucks.

To try to fit in, we have made a concerted effort not to wear any foot gear other than flip flops. I have yet to tuck a surf board under my arm, but Jeff has been going to work regularly with a boogie board and a beach towel in his trunk. We have strolled up and down the streets of Bird Rock, a little enclave of La Jolla, and hit many of the take-out joints in Pacific Beach - but have yet to brave the bars where we see women clad in bikinis and men in cut offs partying as if they were in a John Cusack film.

The past month has passed in a blur. The first few days were dedicated to unpacking and sorting out our material possessions to approximate some state of stability even as our two car garage remains filled with unpacked boxes and plastic bins. Then the dam of work I had put up while our lives took their course broke and I have been drowning in it since. Even though we hired a part time nanny to help us, we don't know what we would have done if my parents hadn't put their own lives on hold to help us with the transition.

Yesterday, I took the day off. We piled in the car and drove one exit over to Sea World. Once there, we pressed our palms against the glass panes and marveled at the orca whales swimming past us. We lathered sun screen on the little guy and braved the sun to watch the dolphin show. And giggled at the sea lions barking for more food. Later, we gobbled up ice cream bars shaped like Shamu.

I purchased an annual membership to the place - and the second year is for free. So until little T turns three -- and if we find ourselves lucky enough to make this our new home -- we'll be there regularly, befriending the whales, the dolphins, the sea lions, and the sea otters. Maybe even the moray eels.

I think about how life must look to a little person like our T, who has suddenly been transported 500 miles and planted in a new home that is three times the size of the only home he has ever known. Who is now showered with overwhelming attention -- and incessant feeding -- by his grandparents from 2500 miles away. Who suddenly finds himself exposed to humongous creatures he has never seen in his one year of existence -- dolphins and orca whales that jump out of the water and crash dive back in.

What else does life have in store for him -- and for us?

Moving!

I am embarrassed that I haven't posted in almost 6 weeks! I feel like such a delinquent. Work has been very busy, and trying to fit that in, even on a part time basis, while taking care of the little guy seems to squeeze away all the free time I might otherwise have. On top of that, I have been obsessed with planning for little T's first birthday party coming up in early October. But perhaps the better excuse may be that we're preparing for a move to San Diego! We're moving in just two weeks, and we still have a lot of packing left to do.

A part of me is apprehensive about the move. I never thought I'd live in Southern California, and I really love the Bay Area. Even though I am not an extreme liberal, I appreciate all that San Francisco stands for, with its hippie backbone and room for outliers. It has also been my home for the past 11 years, more than a quarter of my life. I have so many friends here that it's hard to imagine just picking up and moving away from them.

I'll start posting again once things calm down. Probably in about three weeks. Please check back in then!

Along the Divide

We're already thinking about no. 2. Little T is only 10 months old, but I've hit my 474th (you do the math), and I'm not about to challenge mother nature's patience after my experience the first time around.

My hope, as I've explained repeatedly to Jeff, is that if no. 2 is a girl (if we're lucky enough to have a second, knock wood), then we call it a day and settle into a family of four. If no. 2 turns out to be a boy, then we keep plugging along to no. 3. If no. 3 turns out to be a boy, we can all pat ourselves on the back for trying and find complacency in our life of mini van and baseball bats.

Jeff hasn't yet bought into my insistence that we keep trying until we welcome a girl into the family. What's the difference, he asks with one eyebrow cocked. Well, I respond, I don't want to be the only girl in the house with you, Sherlock, and our sons. I want to have a daughter, if we can.

When I make my case to Jeff, I feel a little on edge. As if my wish for a daughter is coming from a place of fear rather than desire. A fear that I do not completely understand.

I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the way we grew up, like most other things. The way my sister and I chattered away in the kitchen as we chopped this and that for our mother, even as we sometimes bickered or complained, while my dad sat on the couch clutching his newspaper and my brother flittered in and out of the kitchen, unsure of where to land. The way my dad never learned how to talk to his children. The way my mother filled my ear with her complaints, sorrows, and longings unmet by her husband. The way my brother and I have never had a meaningful conversation our whole lives. It seems strange even to me as I write it.

In our family, alliances were forged often along gender lines. Not intentionally, but perhaps because that's how we understood or didn't understand each other. I never understood my brother's penchant for Ozzy Osbourne or Led Zepplin, even though I could easily understand why my sister loved Les Miserables. I could never understand my father's stoicism and reticence even though I could identify with my mother's need for empathy and yearning to be heard.

But these leanings probably weren't coincidences. Our gender divide was established for us from the beginning. For the first 14 years of my life, my dad went to work, and my mom stayed home. As the older girl, I was relegated the job of helping my mother. When my mother cooked, I was her sous chef. When she did the laundry, I folded. I was always called on as her assistant and raised in her shadow. I don't know if I ever saw my brother do the dishes. Or fold the laundry.

We were a traditional family -- with roles meted out to women and men along conventional lines. And it was in the kitchen where my sister and I often found ourselves, helping our mother prepare the many dishes that she cooked. With our sleeves rolled up, our hair pulled back in pony tails. Flour or grease smeared on our arms or faces. My mom's many appliances hooked in here and there, as we stood over the kitchen table with a turner in hand. Or stationed above the stove, manning the skillet. And in the many hours while we cooked, we talked. Not just about the cooking, with my mother spouting out instructions here and there, but also about the things happening in our lives. Our friends. Our teachers. Whatever was on our mind. And it is here where my father and brother never found a place to belong.

Now that I look back on our childhood, I can see how the men in our family must have felt left out as my mom, my sister, and I chattered away in the kitchen. How they couldn't find a way into our conversations. Sometimes, they hovered over us, but only to grab a glass of water or to poke their heads in the fridge. Or to sample whatever we were cooking. But they never grabbed a spatula and said, "How can I help?" Or sidled up to our mom to say, "What do you need me to do?"

Instead, they sat in the living room. My dad with his newspaper. And my brother with his eyes on the TV. But not together. Without talking.

I wonder if they felt lonely. I'm sure they must have. But I never asked. And they never expressed it.

I suspect my wish for a daughter is my fear of feeling left out. Of being that odd person out. In my own family. I remember that scene from A River Runs Through It, where the father and his two sons go off fly fishing -- and the mother waves them good-bye as she takes a break from doing the laundry. I don't want to be that mother.

I know my fear isn't rational. I won't have the same family that my parents had. Jeff and I aren't my parents. So obvious. If only someone could impress that into my loopy brain.

The funny thing is when I imagine our family these days, it doesn't necessarily include a daughter. Before we had little T, I pictured a daughter, but ever since he showed up, it's hard to imagine a child of ours other than him. These days, when I think of our family, I see me and Jeff with little T. Or with three little boys who look just like T. All giggling and climbing all over us. Both of us.

A Little Plug

I recently took a writing class with Josh Mohr at the Writing Salon. I had taken a class with him before on flash fiction and liked it so much that I signed up for another with him. This class was focused mostly on dialogue, and each week, we wrote short pieces to read out loud and receive feedback. Josh is obviously a very sensitive listener/reader, and I was impressed by how he was able to pick up all the subtleties in our writing from hearing us read it out loud once. Anyway, during one of our classes, he mentioned that his second book was coming out and that it was being reviewed in the New York Times. I looked up his review yesterday, and the review was so favorable that I promptly ordered a copy of his book. It's so exciting to see a writer make it. I hope this book launches him into literary stardom.

Here's the link to his book Termite Parade. Order a copy, and let me know what you think! (Or check out his first book Some Things That Meant the World to Me.)

A House Big Enough

For the past two years, I've been harping about needing more space. We live in a two bedroom, one bath house generously estimated to be 1300 square feet by a tape ruler happy appraiser. It may not be tiny by San Francisco standards where people share stories about receding into the bathroom for quiet time, and it didn't feel that way when I bought it as a single woman in 2005. It has a decent sized living room/dining room/kitchen area, and I used to love cramming my friends around the kitchen island to ooh and aah over whatever concoctions I had prepared for them. In the winters, I dragged in boxes of firelog from Safeway and lit up my fireplace, the way any reasonable person would in 40 degree weather. (California has made me soft, if not environmentally conscientious.) When Jeff moved in with some of his stuff and Sherlock in late 2006, it felt manageable still. He just had to pack away most of his tools and furniture in the storage unit in the South Bay and make himself comfortable on my chaise lounge. And for the past couple of years, it seemed there was enough room for my orchids, Sherlock's Kirkland pads, and Jeff's over-sized speakers, even if we had to shut the door to the clutter-filled second bedroom when our friends came to visit.

It was only when we started planning to have a baby that I became obsessed with the idea of a larger house. Suddenly, the place started feeling claustrophobic. There was no room for everything. Everything meaning the baby's crib, changing pad, play area, the baby's clothes and toys, my clothes, my books, my plants, Jeff's gadgets, Jeff's bikes, and Sherlock. And then when I started preparing for my parents who were planning to stay with us after the baby's birth, I became adamant that we had to move. Immediately.

My urge to move verged on hysteria. My constant refrain became, "We have to move. No, really, we have to move." It drove me to tears at times, this sense of desperation. I wanted a proper nursery for our soon arriving baby, with stickers of jungle animals on the walls, his mini trousers and sweaters hanging on mini hangers, his cardboard books arranged alphabetically on a decorative bookshelf, and his toys in color coordinated bins. But in addition to what I wanted for the little guy, I wanted the rest of my house in order with my furniture arranged just so and my clothes and books placed according to their categories. I wanted a picture perfect house, perfect enough for the perfect baby we were going to be welcoming. And I envisioned us in it, all of us, me, Jeff, our baby, Sherlock, and my parents, sitting around comfortably around plates of symmetrically cut fruit, not crowding each other out, getting along perfectly.

Throughout my pregnancies, including those two that ended in miscarriages and the latest, we spent much of our downtime looking for a new house. We went out every weekend to look at open houses, driving up and down the hills of San Francisco, popping out of the car and into the houses, and popping back into the car with glossy fliers in hand. During the weekdays, we were constantly surfing redfin and other real estate sites, lusting after photos of houses that seemed palatial compared to ours. The housing market was on the decline, we constantly heard, and we waited eagerly to see listing prices drop.

And a few did, but not enough. We couldn't justify paying $900 a square foot, no matter how beautiful, how expansive the view, especially when we kept anticipating the prices to drop. We may be many things, but we're not suckers, we told ourselves. We made a couple of low ball offers but they didn't stick. So we kept looking and looking as I got bigger and bigger. And then the baby popped out.

My parents were scheduled to arrive the day before I was to be induced. Jeff dragged up his old futon from the storage unit and set it up in the second bedroom. We put the baby's crib in our bedroom and made plans to move it after my parents went back to New York. We asked a friend to help us move the wardrobe into the garage. I removed most of my clothes from the second closet to make room for the baby's things and folded them into plastic bins. I boxed away most of my books, read or unread.

When my parents arrived, they kept banging their legs against the futon frame in the small bedroom. When we re-arranged the room to minimize the bruises, my dad had to get in bed before my mom did and could not get out without consulting her. When we sat in the living room, we sometimes had to pull one of the dining chairs over to the couch so that we could all have a place to sit. Sometimes, my dad just sat at the dining room table while Jeff, my mom, and I fussed over the baby. We all bumped into Sherlock when he was scavenging in the kitchen. When my parents announced that they would return to New York earlier than they had planned, I cried. I thought they were uncomfortable in our little house.

Almost two years after we started looking, we are still looking for a new house. And during these past two years, we've been living in a state of impending relocation. It took more than a month for me to decide to put the stickers of the jungle animals on the walls of T's room because I wanted to save them for the new house. Then there is the garden that's been overtaken by weeds that we plan to clean up right before we move. And the list of things to repair around the house. Just easier to address them at once after we move out, right? The last straw was the painting dangling less than three feet off the floor that Jeff hung on a pre-existing nail. Just needed to put it somewhere for now, he said. I'm sure Sherlock appreciates the view.

The other day, I realized that our search for a new house has become a metaphor for my life. Me, looking for a space to fit everything in, a house large enough for all of us: me, Jeff, our baby, and my parents. Me trying to find a space where I can be a wife, mother, and daughter at once and a Korean and an American simultaneously. Trying to find a place where I can feel settled, with all my things in their place.

For me, becoming a mother has been a process of unsettling. Starting with the upheaval of the mundane: clearing out the closets, packing up my books, re-arranging the furniture, undoing life as we were living it to make room for the little guy. Then there is the re-structuring of our time -- compressing all of the daily tasks that used to occupy our days into a two-hour window while he naps and devoting the rest of our time to tend to his needs. More importantly, though, becoming a mother has forced me to identify and re-examine the values and priorities that I thought I had in place. It makes me see everything in a new light: families, relationships, frailty. All of life's sediments kicked up into the air.

Maybe I just need more space to re-group myself.

I don't know what it is about becoming a mother that makes your home singularly important. I am that bird fluttering about, looking for perfectly sized twigs for the perfectly sized nest.

Respect for Fear

There was an article in the newspaper the other day about 31 year old Stanford graduate student who fell 300 feet to her death while descending a peak in Yosemite without ropes. For some reason, that story has been on my mind. Maybe because the student was an Asian girl. Maybe because Jeff used to rock climb. Or maybe because I spend so much of my day these days ensuring that our little guy does not fall.

When he's not strapped in a high chair or a stroller, T spends most of his day pulling himself up. On whatever is nearby. The couch, the Learn & Groove Music Table, the laundry basket. He's on a campaign to explore the world, and I religiously follow him around, my arms extended in a wide circle around his torso, my flabby thighs poised to pad his fall. Sometimes, after I feed him on the couch, he slides off of my lap, scampers across the couch, and flops himself on the arm rest. He pulls himself up by his little arms, reaches across the precipice between the couch and the adjacent arm chair, and tries to hoist himself across. In those moments, the gap between the sofa and the arm chair appear as vast and deep as the Niagara, and I swoop in to gather him in my arms and land him safely on his play mat.

This routine continues throughout the day. Each time I put him on the changing table, he reaches above to feel the crib slats. He soon rolls over and attempts to stand as he wavers on the giving foam. In the evenings, after I bathe him, I lay him on his back on the futon to re-read Sesame Beginnings or Sandra Boynton's Going to Bed for the fiftieth time. Impatiently, he rolls over onto his belly and scurries across the mattress. He quickly reaches the edge and looks over the cliff of the wooden frame. He bends over just slightly before my hands shift his balance back to the safety of the bed.

I think of the mother of that young woman who must have spent her days over 30 years ago as I do now. Bracing for her every fall. Guarding her against possible bruises and scrapes to be had. Landing her on the safety of solid ground. And how she had succeeded each time. And how that matters so little now.

Becoming a parent has been an introduction to a new level of fear. At least once a day, I have images of catastrophe flash before me, him falling over, head first, onto the hard wooden floor, injury to his delicate little neck. I want to hold him all day long so that he cannot fall and bang that precious little head.

The article included a quote from a friend who hoped that this young woman would inspire others to live to their fullest. As a mother, I don't see any of that. Instead, I see a life cut short, an ending that didn't need to be. A life that could have continued to be lived - in whichever form.

I think about the dare devils among us, and I wonder if their urge to scale the highest peak stems from something in their childhoods. The urge to feel the freedom they had as children to roam to their heart's content, to revel in the comfort of knowing that there is always someone near to save us. If only we could live like that.

I want to instill a healthy respect for fear in our little T. Not a life lived in fear, but a reminder that we never free ourselves from the laws of nature. That fear sometimes serves a purpose. I don't know how you teach that, and I don't know if I will succeed. But I hope a speck of this fear I now have goes with him when I am no longer shadowing him.

A Small Thanks

To all of you who migrated with me, a small thank you.

I've been blogging for a couple of years now, and as strange as it may sound, I haven't spent too much time thinking about those of you reading my posts. I generally wrote whatever I felt like writing, whenever I felt like writing. Of course, I've received personal emails from some of you and read each of your comments with great interest, and on all of those occasions, I have been deeply warmed that you took the time to reach out. But apart from that, I never really imagined the faces of those of you visiting my site. Google analytics kept telling me that I have hundreds of visitors every day, but I don't think I really believed it. During the last two days, though, when I started receiving emails from those of you requesting the new link, it dawned on me that you are real people reading my posts! And that you've been there on those days I was too lazy, too busy, or too blase to post.

I know some of you preferred to stay anonymous, so thank you for stepping out of the closet to request the new link. Feel free to recede into that closet, and I'll make myself comfortable in my own. I can already start to feel the freedom of anonymity, and have plans for several posts I want to write that I felt I couldn't before. I think I'm going to enjoy writing here.

As always, thank so much for reading. Going forward, I'll do my best to make your visit worthwhile!

Baby Veins

This past Friday morning, we had T's 9 months check-up. Much to my relief, he had only one shot during the examination. During either the 3 or 6 months check-up, I think they stabbed him with four shots, and seeing the nurses grip the needles with enclosed fists as if they were knifes and plunge them into his chubby little thighs made me want to cry out with him. This time, T cried for just about 5 seconds after the shot, and we were about to go merrily on our way when the nurse handed us a sheet and reminded us that we needed to go to the lab to get his blood drawn for lead testing. Lead testing -- that sounds pretty important, right? Of course I wanted our little baby tested for lead. It didn't even occur to me to think about what that might entail.

We promptly headed downstairs, with little T ensconced in my ergo, and I dutifully handed over the lab sheet to the lab administrator. We waited for a short while as T tried to climb over me, onto the table, and onto all the chairs around us until his eyes caught the TV screen in the far right corner and he suddenly seemed to forget he had limbs. When they called his name, I was happy to drag him away from the oblivion of the bright blue screen.

The lab technician and his assistant introduced themselves and we followed them into a private room. There, they had me sit on the chair with the arm rest as I propped T on my lap. They briefly checked the veins in both of his arms, wrapping the blue elastic around each and tapping quickly. They settled on the right arm, pinning it down, while I wedged T's legs between my thighs and wrapped my arm around his free left arm. T was already screaming and trying to fight us off. For a little guy who weighs just over 20 pounds, he can throw his weight around like a gorilla.

I was so focused on keeping his legs and left arm pinned down that I didn't look at what the technician was doing. In a desperate effort to comfort him, I had my face pressed against little T's as tears streamed down his face and he drooled out of his nose and mouth. His contorted face was pleading with me to make it stop, and I focused all my energy on communicating to him in whatever means he could understand that it would be over quickly. His sobs and screams, with intermittent screeches, were unlike any I had heard before, and he was at times almost dry heaving because he was so exhausted from crying.

After a while, I wondered what the hell was taking so long. I looked up toward the right arm and saw that the technician still hadn't attached the vials to the needle. Despite my aversion to needles, I looked over directly at the needle and saw that the technician had the needle stabbed in little T's arm with his one hand and was rolling the skin on T's arm toward the needle to try to get the needle to meet the vein. With nausea, I watched him do this three or four more times as I silently muttered to myself, "He's the professional. I'm sure baby veins are really hard to find. I'm sure he's trying the best he can. He must know what he's doing." I was on the verge of turning into a hysterical protective mother when I finally blurted out with as much restraint as I could muster, "I don't think this is working."

As soon as I said it, the technician pulled out the needle as T kept bawling and screaming. He put a wad of cotton over T's arm and told me to put an ice pack on it when I got home. He then practically ran out of the room as he muttered, "Let me get some help." He returned with another technician, and she briskly took over. Little T had been screaming and crying non-stop since this all began, and he tried with all his little might to fight her off as he tried to climb higher up my chest. She pried his arm down and began the process all over again of tying the blue elastic around the other arm, tapping it, and rubbing it with alcohol. She couldn't seem to find a suitable vein, so she pressed something like an ice pack on it and then tapped it some more. As little T kept crying hysterically, I suggested that we return on another day. The technician seemed relieved and said, "Yes, what a good idea."

Little T cried all the way to the car, and finally settled down when he was strapped in and surrounded by all of his colorful furry toys. He seemed to forget all about the trauma he had endured during the rest of the day. When I later removed the cotton wad from his arm, though, I saw the damage they had done. T had more than seven holes in what had been a perfect little arm. I am sure it will heal, but the thought of him being stabbed so many times makes my blood boil.

I am dreading having to go back in again. We plan to call ahead to find out who is the most experienced with little baby arms. The next time we go in, I will have to make a point to keep my eyes on the needle from the beginning to make sure the technician doesn't treat his arm like a dart board. And I won't be so eager to pull the little guy away from the television in the waiting room.

Reason for Change

On Friday night, my mom called because she learned about my blog and was upset that I wrote so publicly about some matters.

Initially, I reacted with anger at her negative reaction to my blog. I had written about her with such tenderness and affection, and yet, she seemed to have missed all of that. She also seemed to have skipped over most of my longings about our family and my sadness about our misunderstandings and miscommunications. Instead, she focused on a couple of posts about my sister and sister-in-law and was embarrassed that our family's discord would be so exposed.

I thought I had been relatively cautious about what I wrote and tried very hard to be fair to those I portrayed. I had hoped to avoid indicting those in my life through my writing, and trying for some new level of understanding instead. But I can see how she could feel that I violated our family's sense of privacy. Given the difference in our notions of privacy, perhaps I should have checked with her before writing about her in the first place, but given the wide gap in our cultural norms, I don't think I would have been allowed much leeway.

I have been feeling pained about this conflict. I wavered between deleting the blog altogether or just continuing to post. This morning, I decided to remove my name from my blog as she requested. Perhaps writing "anonymously" will give me more latitude, even though many of you already know who I am. It would be somewhat less stressful not to have my name pop up on google searches. Anyway, I would appreciate it if you refrain from using my name on comments going forward.

Phew

Usually, I write on our dining table, but tonight I had to make my escape to the bedroom. This morning, because we were low on dog food, Jeff fed Sherlock a handful of leftover crumbs of the dry dog food, one raw whole egg (with the shell and all), and egg whites from EIGHT eggs left over from the key lime pies I made for a BBQ yesterday. I knew Sherlock loved eggs, but I've never seen him eat so many in one day. Then in the evening, because Sherlock was so good about letting Little T crawl all over him, Jeff rewarded him one more egg. This is the last time I let Jeff be so generous with our eggs because the whole evening, Sherlock has been farting like crazy, and our tiny house is infused with the smell of his fart. Dog farts can be more lethal than human farts, and this time is no exception. It may even be worse than usual because eggs are involved. We all know what rotten eggs smell like. And what happens to eggs when they've been sitting in a dog's digestive system for 12 hours? We are suffocating in its stink in our tiny house. Right now, Sherlock is reclining on his dog pad by the dining table, the way Cesar must have after a big meal, letting all the goodness settle inside (or spread outside, depending on how you view it). We're going to have to barricade ourselves in the bedroom and force Sherlock to sleep in the living room tonight instead of at the foot of our bed as he usually does.