Tag Archives: family

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It’s All In Perspective

Parenting brings out different ideals and morals in a person. You see things in the way you hope your child will see them and are more aware of the things you say. With my first child, I definitely learned to watch my language at least in speaking out loud. You also learn that every action you perform, they learn. They learn everything from you, but I think that mostly you learn from  you children.

With my new addition growing inside, I notice that I’m more aware of certain issues this time around that I didn’t need to worry about with my first. My first son is a majority, a white male. My son waiting to enter the world will likely have more challenges we’re both going to have to walk through for the first time, since this society is still a society that struggles with race issues and people who are different. My unborn son will have to hold his head high while slurs are tosses at him because he’s Asian. They’ll hold the skins of their eyes and make a squinty face to imitate him, and mispronounce words because that’s what they see on TV.

Even more, I think about the internment that took place in World War II. I think about the terrorist attacks and how that made our country view Muslims. I get scared thinking about those things, because it makes me wonder what happens if we end up in a war with North Korea. I worry that my children and husband will be taken away just because their lineage is Korean. I worry they’ll get thrown down stairs, have eggs tossed at them, have our house vandalized because we live in a closeted xenophobic society. And by closeted, I mean hidden as well in the closet as Clay Aiken was.

More logically, laws similar to the one being discussed about immigration in Arizona and how if they become widespread how that will affect my family. I would’ve said before who cares if they want to pass a law they think will work though it will probably make racial profiling acceptable. Now I sit there and think, “how do I feel that a law like this means that my child can be pulled over just because he’s Asian and needs to prove that he’s American. Do I need to make him carry around his birth certificate so some tough guy cop doesn’t bully my child?” Lawmakers say that it won’t increase racial profiling, but that’s like saying it just seems like anyone with tan skin and a beard gets stopped more at airport security.

I hope for the sake of my children that I’m being skeptical and paranoid. Maybe things will change between now and then, and maybe I don’t have to worry about the cruel world I’m bringing them into. I can hope that I raised them well enough to not retaliate violently and stand up for themselves in a positive way. Mostly, I can hope that the world is a little more tolerant in the future.

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To Baby Reality Television

I admitted before, I watch some reality shows for the sole purpose of laughing about them. People can’t really be that crazy or dumb, right? That’s wishful thinking on my behalf I think, but it has its own entertainment factor. During boring hours of the early morning, I admit sometimes watching those baby birthing reality shows. With my recent condition, I now watch these with more scrutiny than I had previously. That is where we find ourselves today in my post.

In watching this, I realize that when I’m in the delivery room birthing this bloody child out of me, I don’t want a crowd of people in there watching blood and goo coming out of me. I don’t even want to watch it, and I don’t want to watch everyone else watching it. Maybe this makes me sound cold-hearted about the “miracle of birth”; I’m not cold about it at all. I just don’t understand why everyone and their everyone would want to watch something as grotesque as the laboring process. I also definitely do not want any bloody “crotch shots”. No one, and I really mean no one, ever wants to see these and I would rather not have my vagina immortalized on film. What if my child got hold of those photos? That’s scarring for the both of us. Then there’s the degrading factor of it all; the birthing process is degrading enough for a woman with 20 different people sticking their fingers up you and staring at things you’d rather them not be staring at. Yep, for all you expectant mothers out there, I have warned you of what you’re about to face. I’ll keep it mostly clean though, and tell you that your first push is never the baby. Don’t be embarrassed, now you expect it.

I noticed something that does make me cringe a little, and this might make me sound like a horrible person. (Because everything I just said didn’t already, right?) Why would you kiss a mucusy, bloody baby right in the globs of it, especially considering what came out before it did? I want to hold my baby when it comes out, I’ll hug its dirty little body. I think I’ll hold of the lip to skin contact until after its bath though, I’m not too much of a OCD germaphobe to say that out loud. Though with previous experience, I don’t think I have to worry since the hospital I’m going to apparently doesn’t believe in the person who spent hours birthing it should touch it first.

I think I’ve learned from these shows, that first I am an overly logical person that thinks before I feel. We are talking to the person who her husband said “if we get married, we’ll save money on health insurance” to convince me to finally take the step of marriage because I didn’t see a logical reason to get married. I think of the logistics of birth: the work, the blood, the gore. Much like everything else in life, it’s more rewarding when you work for it. After hours of painful non-epidural labor, you meet this thing that’s been growing in you for what seems like forever. That’s the biggest reward of all, when you hear the first screams and finally meet it.

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Things I Learned at the OB/GYN

Yes, another installment of my “Things I learned”. I know, you’re excited to see what happened.

The first thing I learned at the OB/GYN is that apparently I have to wait because someone decides that they should get a test that’s been scheduled for a week done right before their appointment. I’m all for a little procrastination, but I’m not for making someone wait an hour for their appointment because I was too lazy to do something a week ago. Which makes no sense, because generally they schedule them after the appointment, so you could’ve just went there on your way out. My theory is they put the lab there for that single reason of “oh I should get this done before I go”. Don’t worry, I had my Droid crossword puzzles and idiots in the waiting room to inspire this post, so I forgive you.

The next thing I learned, I should mention that I learned from a nice and intelligent group of teenagers. One was pregnant, and she decided it’d be a fun field trip for her and her friends. I know when I think of a fun day out with my friends, it’s having everyone together with me, while I’m covered in nothing but sheets while my female parts are on display. Sadly that’s not the reason I mentioned it, and I’ll ask you to prepare a /facepalm. The pregnant one says “I wonder if I can get them to C-Section this thing out of me 3 months early. I mean, its brains fully developed so it should be fine.” Her friend responded, “I’m sure it’ll be OK, you should ask while we’re there.” If you’re going to talk in the waiting room, don’t speak loud enough the entire place hears you say something stupid. Secondly, maybe being pregnant you should probably learn something about fetal development. I actually wish I was her friend in that moment to see how the exam with the midwife or doctor went. Oh, I laughed imagining what the medical practitioner’s face would look like in that moment.

The last thing I learned is that mothers don’t always know best. While sitting outside, reading the information packet my midwife gave me, a woman is walking by with her male partner and an infant in her arms. While holding her child, she has a lit cigarette hanging out of her mouth, with ashes dropping on the child’s clothes. The infant coughs, and she said “I wonder why he isn’t breathing well?” She tosses the baby to her partner, and drops the lit cigarette to the ground and walks in while her partner says “that’s why we’re here. He’s not doing so well.” It’s always sad to see a sick baby, those poor helpless beings. I might not be an expert in the medical field, but something tells me that carrying a child while smoking in their face probably isn’t helping them breathe any better. I’d also gather that smoking in a child’s face during the cold and flu season isn’t the best thing to do either. In fact, I think I’d go out on a limb and say just maybe, this is a long shot though, that blowing smoke in a baby’s face is causing them not to breathe well. Just tossing some free and unlicensed medical advice there.

And with that, I conclude what I learned. I hope any of this information is useful to you.

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Parenting 101

There are probably thousands or millions of parenting books on the market, and they make money as flocks of people go to read them. Chapters upon chapters that share what it means to be a parent and what you can do to improve on that. I think they are a sham; parents don’t need a book to tell them how to be a parent. If you need a book, you have more problems than you think.

This isn’t a knock on people who feel a little self-help is in order; I’m all for people improving because no one is perfect. That’s not the point of what I’m trying to say, the point is that basically being a parent isn’t something you can read in a book. Kids aren’t looking for a perfect parent; they are looking for “a” parent.

Now this brings us a question: What is a parent? I can tell you that donating genetics to create a human life doesn’t make you a parent; it makes you a genetic donor. I can tell you that a parent shows up to baseball games or at least just shows up when they tell you they will. A parent cuddles you in blankets with waters when you’re sick, and brags about you to their friends. A parent is simply someone who is there and loves you, and your child isn’t left wondering if you care or even remember they exist. I just told you what a parent is in a paragraph. I told you that you didn’t need any overpriced books to learn how to be a parent. You just need to show that you care.

I don’t think that being a parent is a right that anyone can give you. If you don’t stand up and take any responsibility, I don’t think you have any right to your child or to call even claim them as your child. A child is a precious gift, not one that should be tossed aside until it’s convenient. You don’t need to have that child be genetically yours, as long as you love it like it is. If you can’t appreciate your child, I don’t even know where to begin how incredibly awful people should think of you. With the thousands of people who struggle with infertility, you deserve the looks of shame you get from people who are dying for the chance to have a child to love. It saddens me to see parents take it for granted, sickens me almost, that a parent wouldn’t want to be involved. But since I hate ending posts on a sad note, I’d also love to take this moment to applaud adoptive and step-parents for loving and raising these children as their own. It takes special people to step up like that.

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A Day of Ups and Downs

On Friday, I woke up nervous to go to the doctors. At the last visit, she was hopeful to hear a heartbeat of the little Ginger Asian, but assured us that it was nothing but her trying to get a head start and it was too early for it anyways. Naturally, anyone would be nervous for the next appointment so my husband and I took a deep breath and went to the doctors assured that everything was going to go perfectly fine. To deny there was a pit in my stomach, I’d be lying. Luckily, the rational part of me overcame the hormonal part with my husband’s usual optimism.

My midwife is an incredibly nice and bubbly person, and greets us with a loud hello as she prepares my fat stomach for the “heartbeat” machine. Somehow naming it in my head made me feel a little more comfortable, until we heard silence when she searched for our little fetus. “At 13 weeks, we’d expect to hear something. Off to Ultrasound you go. I wouldn’t want you to wait a weekend to find out what’s wrong.”

I was shocked, completely scared and if my husband wasn’t there I probably would’ve snapped. He was there, walking me down assuring me that it was because the baby was a pain in the butt and everything was fine. “It has to be a girl, if it’s being this difficult”, he mused. I tried to laugh, but I was too scared to and fighting any normal person urge to start crying. We made it there and they didn’t make us wait long to be seen. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt that grateful to someone in the medical field that wasn’t a friend.

To make this long-winded story short, she found the heartbeat very easily. It was also a good source of laughs for all of us because the little Ginger-Asian is apparently the little acrobat refusing to stay still for the technician. Leave it to me to have a baby that somersaults in the womb, and did I mention it waved to us? Yeah, that’s my future kid… the gymnastic ham. It all thankfully worked out in the end. And I wasn’t 13 weeks, I was just about 11, which explained everything. I bet it is a girl, because only a girl would give you that much of a heart attack and be that crazy.

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Awards!

Yesterday was my birthday, and what a present to have Peter Dinklage win a well deserve Golden Globe. I enjoy watching an awards show when the underdog wins it. Plus, being a huge fan of the book and television series, I couldn’t be happier. Maybe next year Emilia Clarke will get at least a nomination, Team Dany anyone?

It wouldn’t be a very good award centered post though, without acknowledging a rare person who deserves an award: my lovely husband. Generally it seems I spend more time laughing it up about how silly he is sometimes, but the truth of the matter is he’s a rare person for our generation. I think he was born in the wrong era, but I appreciate that fact more every day. I don’t know very many, if any people, in my generation that feels strongly about certain traditions. I mock his love of traditions, but he sticks to them and I can’t wait to see if those ideals rub off on our children.

Before proposing to me, he did something that I didn’t think people even did anymore: he asked my father’s permission. This same situation occurred when we discovered we were expecting, it was him who needed to announce it. In defense of my laughing at him, he stated “that’s what men are supposed to do.” Supposed to take claim of me, I asked? “No, show respect for her family because that’s how she knows that he respects her.” He stands by this affirmation, and I find it incredibly endearing, though I admit that until now I found it outdated. You learn to appreciate chivalry once you’ve finally met someone practices it. Unfortunately for our future daughter if we’re lucky enough, he’ll probably expect that from her future husband. That is of course, assuming he doesn’t scare off any potential suitor with a gun.

As a result of this, I feel he’s one of the few “men” of our age group. Marriage and conceiving children doesn’t need a “man” to do it, a man is the one who stands up and does what he needs to do. That’s why I think my husband should win an award for “Outstanding Man of the Year, under 30”. Did I mention he acts like this and he’s only 26? Yeah, I know I’m impressed too. That’s why I married him.

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I Should Feel More Shocked

I’ve realized in a short time that reading certain things on the news doesn’t shock me. A politician involved in a cheating/stealing/conning scandal? Racism and Homophobia still exist? I don’t think I’m the only one who can read the news and read appalling news articles without batting an eye; we’ve become desensitized to a lot of horrible activities.

Often times when I’m at a loss of what to write about, I read around the news articles to find something that seems worth it. Some days this takes forever, and I end up picking up inspiration elsewhere. Today, it took me all of 4 minutes to discover something so revolting it needed to be mentioned. Sadly, reading more into it I was angrier than I had been in a while. Most importantly, I felt angry that I wasn’t more shocked that something like this occurred. A part of my short story collection is a piece about bullying and I assure you this will find its way in there.

Bullying occurred all the time growing up. I was bullied; I’m pretty sure everyone I know experienced some form of it. Things were different then, it wasn’t as malicious as it is today. I’m not entirely sure if that’s a result of social networking and easy access to media or if it’s a result of our culture just being crueller than it used to be. I’m leaning towards a combination of the two, but that doesn’t matter at all. Locally two younger teenagers received attention for committing suicide, a girl even made national news for her death and both blamed on bullying. That’s disgusting enough, but I promise the story I read even surpasses that in how awful our society has become.

Right on my Yahoo! Page, I see a story of a girl who was taunted and died. I blindly went into it and discovered that this girl my son’s age died of Huntington’s disease, which was sad enough for me. Reading further, I saw that her neighbor was bullying her and doing horribly cruel things. Disgusting right? Then I saw the kicked and I saw how awful this story would really become: The neighbor responsible for this was an adult, a mom. I regret to use the word adult for this, that person was just an overgrown teenage bully. I read in horror that she made pictures of the girl with skulls and crossbones, her and her mother (who died of the same disease a few years earlier) as a grim reaper holding a baby all on the social media. As if that wasn’t appalling enough, she would drive a truck around the neighborhood with a coffin attached to it. As if I didn’t lack enough hope in humanity, I read this.

I couldn’t say I wouldn’t sink low enough to hunt down someone who would do the same to my child and physically harm them. I think that’s a natural instinct any parent has. It pains me to see how her children will grow up; she did more than just emotionally assault a dying girl. She potentially is raising her children to be vicious and heartless bullies too. This is why the bullying cycle starts.

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It’s a New Year

As the New Year’s countdown began, I could only think of one thing: why did Justin Bieber feel the need to ruin “Let it Be”? Even seeing the great Carlos Santana couldn’t save my horror and the feeling that the upcoming year was something that I should run from. Alright, I’m kidding… mostly. It was a disaster, but New Years is something more exciting than watching a teen idol ruin a classic. It’s really going to be exciting, I hope. So here’s my run down for the upcoming year.

1)      The year of the babies. I don’t just mean my up and coming fetus, but everyone and their sisters seem to be pregnant. My own sister included, (I don’t like using “in-law”, she’s my sister) with her child only due a few weeks ahead of mine as the count goes now. Exciting, they can practically be siblings. This is probably the biggest excitement of the year, becoming a mother and aunt again.

2)      Did I finally finish a book? Well book might be overstating it, at only 15,000 words it’s a mini-book at best. Hopefully in the coming weeks it’ll be up on Amazon EBook and I can finally say I finished it. This definitely ranks #2 on my list, which would’ve been my biggest accomplishment if my planned surprise didn’t surprise me first. Either way, that will hopefully not be a complete embarrassment and I can rest assured I followed my dreams anyways. Slowly crawling behind that, my short story collection will be up later this year finally, as I started work on that long before my precious novella. Don’t worry, when it’s listed for sale, everyone will hear about it.

3)      Anything else that comes my way. I appreciate surprises, like when I heard the Taylor Swift song for The Hunger Games movie. I suppose I’m still trying to adjust to my love of not just a country song, but one she sang. The best part of a new year is that you really don’t know what’s coming, and I’ll quote internet meme “Come at me, bro” to show my feelings for it.

I don’t believe in resolutions. I hate broken promises, and let’s face it, that’s all resolutions really ever become. I do believe in starting the year off with an open mind and an acceptance that this year might not be better than the last, hell it could be a lot worse than last year, but that it’s another year you’re alive to experience things. So Happy New Years readers, I hope the best for you.

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The Ginger Asian

For a while after we got married, my husband and I started talking about children and all that fun stuff that married people talk about someday procreating more of us. We affectionately nicknamed this future fetus to be “the Ginger Asian”. We planned it would happen when it happened, and such is life, it happened far sooner than I anticipated though I’m no less overjoyed by this.

Yes, you read correctly. Another me is entering into this world, as long as nothing horribly bad occurs before then. My husband was far more excited about it than I thought, and I often wonder if he’s more excited than I am. I worry though, I always worry. I have a nasty habit of staying realistically pessimistic until I’m proven that things will work out. I’m still happy though, everything will happen as it’s supposed to.

So for the holidays, we gave our families a special gift: the announcement that a new baby will grace them with their presence. They clapped, and smiled and cheered for joy. We held them to secrecy, until today’s doctor’s appointment would confirm it because the last thing we wanted was a false positive that ended up to be cancer. Yes, that would be my luck.

I hope the world is ready for you, Ginger Asians, I’m sure you’ll take the world by storm.

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Goodbye Old Friend

Before we get into the post of sappiness ahead, I’d like to take some time to wish you all a “Happy Holidays”. I’m sure our family is going to have a great one. I’ll be back on Monday in full swing of things.

Wednesday I called in sick to my posts, so my apologies. But we’ll ignore that fact and pretend that my error was on purpose to make a splendid post in honor of the first man of my life: my father. Any girl would be lying if they didn’t admit that they were in some form of being a bit of a daddy’s girl. I’m the only daughter; it would be a total lie in denying it.

Today is his first day of enjoying the rest of his life in retirement, just in time for the holidays. I’m sure it’s a bittersweet moment for him, but he deserves it. My father always worked when I was a kid, but he did it for us. He worked hard so all of us could be happy and have things we wanted or needed. I used to joke, and still joke now, that he worked so much to get away from my family. Except me, I’m awesome; my brothers are a different story entirely. He received a fitting goodbye from his co-workers of a man who was admired by them. I don’t blame them; I still admire him every day.

They don’t see him fully in his element. At work he is their supervisor that did his job well, but at home he raised a decent enough family and adores his grandchildren. I only hope now that in his retirement, he can enjoy them to the fullest. Though I bet in a week he goes crawling back, this place is an animal house sometimes. I’m kidding… maybe. But if it wasn’t so crazy, we wouldn’t be nearly as interesting.

All joking aside, I’m sure my brothers can agree that this was a long time coming and no one ever thought he’d actually retire. Now, he’s young enough to enjoy the rest of his life and I hope he has a while longer with us. I speak for all of us when I say, you rock and thanks for everything.