update:  have been on the fence about whether to write more on this here blog because i am thinking about so much lately yet i fear that i will regret sharing my innerworld on the dang worldwideweb YET i truly want to connect with others and maybe what i’m saying can resonate with other women…here is a quickie letter i wrote to micah while in LA:

25 feb 2011

it’s hard to keep record of your progress since u change everyday, sometimes throughout the day.
you slept most of the time during your first plane ride ever, and it was a big one – from jfk to lax.  u were in the moby wrap that was all kinds of long-loopy nonsense but mama figured that the fabric would be better for you than the stuffy bjorn.  mama’s friend was kind enough to send me her barely used one in time for our family’s flight on 2.11.11.
 
lately, you have become so aware, it’s astonishing!  you always had SOME vision but you seem like val kilmer in that awful movie where his vision is restored after being a blind masseuse.  you watch mama and california gramma intently.  you seem to be more emotional when we disappear from your line of vision.  i’m not trying to knock you down but you do seem needier this week than you were before your vision sharpened.  before your gradual Awakening.  you Avatar baby – You See Me.
 
yesterday at the Topanga Plaza, a mall mama used to visit regularly during her high school days, an abuela commented by asking mama if she also has another baby on the way because of my extra padding.  and in true mama fashion, instead of walking away in a huff, i ended up practicing spanish with her while i finished my Toasted Coconut L.A. Creamery ice cream (where i called myself Just a Housewife to my dismay).  the abuela’s hija gordita said, “well, if you’re not the type to work out hard, you’ll lose it slowly then.  it’s okay.”  she was so fat herself, not just ___ lbs. extra like me, but she said that and proceeded to ask me a lotta personal questions WHICH I KEPT ON ANSWERING!  because i am effusive and open, i seem to give off a vibe to ppl that says, “Yes, please go there.  Ask away about my life!”
 
you will soon know that unlike mama, your papa is very private.  my nature is to be open but always end up kicking myself for giving away too much – even with this blog i may or may not continue.  i wonder how you’ll be.  on a positive note, the abuela did say, “que lindo, que bello!  que limpio!  mira los brazitos!” about you.  i dunno how ppl don’t stop to gasp at your olive-skinned, bright-eyed, perfect eyebrowed, juicily plump form.  even if you weren’t mine, i would stop to gasp at your cuteness that is not adequately captured in photos.  but then again, i’ve always been a worshipper of babies and even seek them out on subways and planes.
 
mama has had a strange week.  i’ve longed to come back Home for so long, esp. since the seven snowstorms hit nyc in jan.  but here, my heart aches in a different way.  i think it’s not a good place to be when i can’t seem to see my blessings CLEARLY the way i was able to during pregnancy.  now i keep envying folks for having rich or financially stable parents or even Auntie _____ who is in a brand new relationship where her fiance’s friends have welcomed her with open arms immediately.  mama can’t help but reflect on how hard it was when i would visit your pops across the country when we were only boyfriend/girlfriend, and ________ were all so cold and unwelcoming.  i don’t wanna boo-hoo but currently mama is in a weepy state to match the rainy weekend we have ahead.  i KNOW i am so blessed but sometimes, when i’m hurting, i don’t SEE clearly and i just see other ppl having “easier” paths EVEN if i know they have their big struggles. 
 
anyways, that was a big tangent mostly so that i can write about it later in some form and also because i don’t mind or think it’s bad if you get to see my inner life, warts and all.  i wanna keep a record of everything for you because time is just slipping by.
 
you are about as tall as the portable changing pad that my striped Le Sport Sac diaper bag came with.  you look to drool and gnaw on your fists.  you are sleeping on a blanket on gramma and grampa’s living room floor.  i didn’t dare drop you off in the pack n play since you seemed so upset to not be held or see me next to you.  i should remind you of that if/when you tell me to drive away from the mall before your friends get there.
your smile.  oh, your smile.  it is so radiant and transforms your serious handsome CEO lookin’ face that doesn’t quite seem like an unformed baby face.  words cannot describe your smile.  it just breaks open your entire face – your whole face smiles, not just smizing.  you are so beautiful – your skin, your perfectly shaped and colored lips, your nose and profile exactly like your dad’s, your perfect chin (maybe mama’s?), your apple, non-droopy spillage of cheeks, your rolls of plush skin that i now have to aquaphor in between as the folds got chafed.
 
you are so good when in the car and at the mall.  you just observe EVERYTHING, esp. lights and ceilings.  you prefer that to toys.  you love to inspect everything and you look so dang wise.  i was watching a dumb show called The Bachelor, where this one dude dates on tv to find his wife.  he was walking along the beach with his shirt off, displaying golden pecs and washboard abs.
 
you already have pecs on a broad chest, my little man!  but one day when you are a grown man, walking around with your choice of ladies to court, i will still see the little boy that i see before me right now, taking a nap, not yet knowing about poor vs. rich, winners vs. losers, la vs. nyc, fat vs. fit…the idea of you as a grown man should make me look fwd to the future but there is a part of mama that wishes she could freeze you right now, where you are most comforted in my bosom and where there is no Me separate from you.  our breaths are intermingled and you find warmth against my body, get startled when i cough, and all you need is my touch to be restored to peace.  i wish i could freeze the simplicity of your needs and i’m scared of when you find out how imperfect and how ugly i can be.
 
i love you micah – so much that i can’t capture it with words.

The doc’s office ran out of HiB vaccines during your 2-month shots so we made an appointment for the week after but the SEVENTH snowstorm of the month hit and shut down the office.  So we went in yesterday.  The receptionist who sounds like Tracy Morgan said, “Last name, Kim?  Yo baby Malachi, right?”  I said, “No, it’s Micah, but hey, both are Biblical!”  She said, “Aw, my bad.  I totally tore your baby’s name UP!”  Malachi sounds nice, too – maybe “Kai” for short like your play cousin, Kai Callen (shout-out).

Mama was less nervous because you were so brave with the first batch of shots and knew that this time, there would only be one.  Unfortunately, we were gonna get the doctor we did NOT want in this big practice.  I guess his schedule and our early morning schedule just works out though and we were asked, “Is it okay if you get Dr. _____?”  We said it was fine because we knew it was just a quickie visit for that one shot.  Mama wanted to be proven wrong but again, he got on her nerves by rushing us, “Hi, Hi, youhaveanyquestionsno?  Good.”  “ACTUALLY, doctor, we have a couple questions.”  Papa was amused because he thought maybe Mama would fight the doctor.  The doctor is a spazz, didn’t even give you a band-aid, and for some reason, stabbed the leather exam console with the used syringe after he was done with you.  He rushed off like he was moonlighting at the Jersey Shore t-shirt store and needed to get back before Bossman Danny noticed he had disappeared for a two-hour coffee break.  Hopefully, we won’t deal with him again.  (He was the one who talked way too much about nonsense like Koreans eating dogs, while not paying you enough attention during the visit, and roughly placing you on the exam console WITHOUT A HYGIENIC TISSUE COVER.  The very exam console that other babies crap and pee on, and the same one he stabbed with a used syringe.)

This time you hardly even cried!  You were so over it already.  You didn’t even need to breastfeed for soothing.

 

After I had my boy, I stepped on our scale and almost screamed.  I may have cursed.  I had lost only about THREE (maybe even TWO?) pounds after expelling one human, one placenta,  and gush upon gush of water and blood.  My uterus had contracted very dramatically within a few days, too.  I felt so light like I could tap dance if I had ever known how.  My husband said it was nice to be able to fully hug me again, with both his arms fully around me.

I had gained a very textbook, healthy amount of weight during my pregnancy.  Still, I had looked forward to stepping on the scale post-delivery and seeing a substantial loss immediately.  Then, almost magically, the next morning, lots more weight had dropped off, like the body needed a bit of time to process the transaction, like credit card refunds.  I am not weight-obsessed as I haven’t been a thin girl since my senior year in high school, and that was only because I was going through something.  I like food more than I crave being thinner.  I just want to fit into my pre-pregnancy clothes and feel lighter on my feet.

Micah has started to pinch.  He gave his daddy a classic tittie-twister while being bathed this past week.  He also likes to pat or grab the fatty fats on my back (where the bra strap would be) as he feeds.  Micah, I know Mama is mad soft right now but please don’t play with my fatty fats.  They are not toys and I feel very shy when you can pinch them, strum them and soon, knead them.

When I went to the gym (obviously without Micah in tow), I missed him not for motherly love reasons but because I needed him as a living, breathing explanation to those around me that I was extra soft and just EXTRA me as I had just given birth.  Yeah, I shouldn’t care what other people think especially when these strangers at my ghetto gym couldn’t care less about me but it’s my overexplaining nature.  I really want to explain to anyone who will listen, “Hey, I used to swim all the time and enjoyed me some yoga.  This is not my true self.  Did I tell you that I gave birth ten weeks ago?”  Well, maybe to grown-up Micah, I will say, “You know, mama used to be a supermodel despite being 5’2 and 1/4 but I retired when I had you.  The hours were too crazy, and all that traveling…”

I hopped on the scale at the gym after one workout and one pee.  It was one of those digital scales that scrambles its numbers before it settles on the final weight.  What?  That’s my PRE-pregnancy weight!  BOO-ya!  It’s a miracle!  It’s only been ten weeks and 2.5 trips to the gym (.5 for the time I started to walk on the treadmill when my husband called me to tell me to come back home).  Halleluyer!  Oh wait, it’s still scrambling.  It had only paused at that pre-pregnancy weight, just visiting that number for old times’ sake I guess, before it scrambled some more and spit out my current number.  Well, I deserved that.  How can I possibly lose the weight that took 39 weeks to gain, in just ten weeks?  C’mon now, I am not Heidi Klum.  And those celebs have resources galore.

Micah, you lucky that you are deemed even CUTER for YOUR double chins, sweaty arm (and wrist!) rolls, thigh rolls, and neck that needs to be flossed.  Mama wants to get fit real soon, for you and for me.  OK, probably more for me.

New stuff in the world-at-large:  chaos in Cairo, Egypt and continued gloomy weather in nyc

New developments in the MLK world:

1)  You do Thighmaster type leg pulses while straddled on Mama’s thigh, as if you were riding a pony.  I can feel you rocking yo body in small rhythmic bops now.  Sometimes you bop yo head too.  Very cute.  Li’l thug.  “it’s the thuggish ruggish bone…”

2)  Just last month, I worried that I am holding you too much, that you may become a mama’s boy, craving my bosom and hugs throughout our day.  But you done flipped the script on me this week, MICAH.  Now, you cry for me to LET YOU GO?  I was holding you, trying to soothe your cries, tryna mush your exquisite cheek into mine, but how’d I get you to calm down?   Only by setting you free into the Pack N Play where you wanted to play on your own, staring and kicking quietly, cooing here and there, for more than an hour.  You like to play alone a LOT now (sniff, sniff).  Y-y-you still have my #, righhh?

Mama was the one hiding around the corner, tryna play it cool but ready to pounce in case you’d wanna cuddle again.  Dah-yum, it’s like that already, huh?  “They SURE do grow up too fast!”

 

3)  You wake up so radiant and extra squeezable, with your face splitting open into a HUGE grin, ready to discuss sports and pop culture with your pops, making it harder for him to leave you to go commute to work!

4)  Mama got encouraged by her best friend from elementary school (currently residing in Peoria, AZ with her own first baby) who told her not to let the cold weather and Korean warnings keep her stuck in the house.  So Mama got you bundled up (though we still lack the plastic cover/wind protector that is KEY), and we braved the sidewalks two days in a row.  It was messy and we got honked at when Mama couldn’t find the lip of the sidewalk to wheel onto…AND some parts had so much snow or dirty slush that we had to find detours just to be able to wheel forward…BUT we made it safe and sound.  You were rewarded with some Aquaphor on your cheeky cheeks.

And you got to see your friend, Naomi, again.  Take that, stank weather!

 

(Wow, this blogging sure takes a lotta effort and time.  But it will serve as a scrapbook for my boy.  Man, I wonder how long video clips will take, cuz at this rate, I’mma have to do TEXT ONLY entries from hereon out and that’s no fun!)

 

 

I’ve been kicking myself for not having started a blog during my glorious pregnancy.  I say “glorious” because it truly was just that.  The most joyful time of my life thus far.  I was uncharacteristically laid-back (other than the worries amidst the fragile, guarded celebration of the first trimester).  Living and even sleeping in amazement and wonder, marveling at the life I was carrying.  On the subway, I would feel an urge to lift my hands in praise, thanking God for my gift.  I was also blessed with a smooth pregnancy, with only some mild nausea here and there.  I never once took it for granted or as a “natural” stage in life as I am VERY aware that many couples cannot conceive easily and my heart keeps going out to them, during pregnancy and now, during this new mama stage.

During those 39 weeks I carried my son, I kept a private notebook recording every symptom and feeling and also took pictures regularly.  But now I want to share via blog so that I can connect with others, especially women, and maybe give future new mamas a glimpse into the inner life of a mama, a mama who is all heart though she still detests cooking and cleaning.  I won’t be able to share recipes witchoo or teach you home remedies as er, that is not my forte, but I want to share my heart.

I kept postponing because of legit excuses like being a sleep-deprived new mama but today is a new month, February 1st, my boy is nearly 10 weeks old, taking a late morning nap, and I don’t want to put this off any longer.

Mamahood makes all cliches ring true.  People, especially parents, would tell me, “They grow up too fast.”  They repeat this in person, on Facebook, strangers, acquaintances, friends alike.  They keep saying this BECAUSE IT IS ALL TOO TRUE.  My boy weighed 6 lbs flat when he arrived on Thanksgiving Day after being in my womb for 39 weeks (full-term).  At his 2-month check-up, he was 12 lbs, 12 ounces.  I even asked my husband if our little MLK, unlike his untall parents, could be suffering from gigantism because I thought babies didn’t double their birth weight until about 4-5 months.

He is sprouting eyelashes and eyebrows oh-so-swiftly, like my very own Chia Pet.  He laughs and squeals, smiling so charmingly that my husband has to say, “Don’t play with the baby during feeding.  He won’t sleep then!”

He went from being a gaunt newborn with sunken cheeks to having the cheeks and jowls of Paul Giamatti.  His eyes were always closed but now roaming around during his waketime, wide and long, like Randy Jackson’s.  I am so in love with this kid.  I think God made human babies the cutest babies in the animal kingdom so that we wouldn’t mind their 1000% dependence on us.

Alright, my boss is waking from his morning slumber.  I miss him even when he naps.  It’s GTL time for us – Gym, Tummytime, Laughter.  Peace out until the next post.