Being a Good Mother While Still Being "Me"

DSC_0074, originally uploaded by jisoob.

This week just flew right by. Between taking classes 3 days out of the week, my two jobs, couple of Drs appointments, Amelia's preschool open house, and couple of Yoga classes-- I'm just tapped out. And the worst feeling is that a mommy guilt has consumed me all week because I have been home late every single day. Most of the activities that I do are beneficial for myself and my family. But there are also some activities that I cram in to make sure so that I can stay relatively sane and stay "ME." I want to be a good mother, good worker, a good wife, but I don't want to lose myself in the shuffle of playing different roles all the time.

Why am I justifying myself like this? I was telling my hectic schedule to someone yesterday, and this person basically told me that it's not me "overachieving" but me just being "greedy." It made me think a bit. I was initially ticked for her saying that, but she was right. I am greedy because I want to be the best mother/wife while not losing my personal identity-- so I cram my schedule to achieve both goals. I refuse to be being "mommy" the only thing that defines me. I love being a mother and I know being a mom has changed me for the better. But I existed before my daughter came along, and I will continue to exist long after she's off to college. I was born as just as "ME" before I took on and started embracing motherhood. Me pursuing my personal interests and dreams that might not have direct benefit to motherhood should not be something I should disregard. So maybe I am indeed greedy, but I think it's the most positive and productive kind of greed there is. Not to mention that it makes me a go-getter. In the end, I actually want to thank this person for saying this to me. It made me think about why I do the things the way I do.

I just read another great blog post titled "did becoming a parent kick the "self" out of "yourself"?" that is relative to my topic today. Great, great post. This is something I think about constantly and it's good to read that there are other working moms out there who share the same concerns.

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Children At Play in Annie's Playground

On Saturday we were invited for a lunch playdate at our friend Seth and Kim's house. They only live 45 minutes from us, but live in such a vastly different environment. They are surrounded by beautiful hills, lots of trees, and at least half an acre of land to themselves. Ah, country side. Although I'm a city girl by nature I do appreciate the change of scenery. Of course Amelia was excited to see "baby Nathan," but the thing that excited her the most was seeing cats in their house (they have three). One of their cats, Smokey, who is literally 20-years old-- circa 90-years old converted in human years(?), was kind enough to let Amelia pat her and play with her. I think it was a win-win situation for both the cat and Amelia. Smokey the cat wanted lots of attention and Amelia was very willing to give it to her.

Here is my favorite shot of Amelia and Smokey. Amelia was moving so fast and the cat was so still. It was such a contrast:



Here is Nathan embracing Smokey:



After lunch, we had to leave dear old Smokey behind to get children to play in the coolest playground in Harford County: Annie's Playground. It was a nifty playground built mostly on wood decorated with paintings. There were multiple intricate slides dedicated for different age level and even some pretty play houses/lookouts. There were even built-in instruments and play stage available. According to Seth, Annie was a little girl who died of cancer and this playground was built in her memory:



The children rejoiced and played, played and played. What a great playground and how thoughtful it was of Annie's family and friends to donate to build such a great playground in her honor.

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Capturing My Brown-eyed Girl with New Sigma Lens

This week I finally got my new Sigma lens for Nikon D40. It is my V-day/ early Birthday gift from Brian. Thanks, honey! I love him for such a wonderful gift even though I had to drop several hints like "Get me this now!" or "Have you ordered the darn thing yet?" a few times.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this lens (after Brian, Amelia, my Mom, and my other lens 50mm f1.8 Nikkor lens, but it's not automatic focus). Never have I been able to capture Amelia's eyes this close in detail. I have always loved Amelia's eyes and this is how I wanted to capture it.







Sigma and I are going to get along very well this year.

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Belated Valentine's Day

Has it already been a few days since Valentine's Day? Jeez...I feel like I could use another nice romantic get away already. I totally got spoiled.


OK, I admit it, I miss these crab cakes more. I'm a foodie.

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What a Windy Week! ..And Learning Some Chinese

DSC_0076, originally uploaded by jisoob.

The weather this week in Maryland has been a bit freaky. It was record high for few days, 50s, 60s, and even 70s, but it was crazy windy. It felt like Spring has paid a short visit just this week..

What else can I talk about beside weather...let's see. I began to travel 3 days out of a week down to College Park area (Jenny-- it's right near your Alma Mater, are you reading??) to learn some Chinese characters. This counts as part of my work training so I'm luckily doing during the day.

Why Chinese? Although Korean is its own language and has the system that looks and acts completely different from Chinese, it was influenced very much by Chinese language system a long time ago (we are talking a couple of thousand years ago). Japanese writing system still utilizes Chinese characters heavily. Japan, Korea, and China: they are like three peas in the pods, except China is the biggest pea, of course. Many advanced-level vocabularies in Korean has been based on Chinese. The easiest way to think of how Chinese relates to Korean is to compare it to how much English language was influenced by Latin. In fact, it is a known theory that the most scholars in Korea still prefer using Chinese characters within Korean text (it makes them look smarter too, like "woo hoo, try to read my thesis on world econonomics and its impact on South Korea. It's written in two languages!")

Anyway, I decided that my Korean is good enough, but it could be better-- I want to be able to recognize 1800 standard Chinese characters on my own with a help of the dictionary. I might not be able to write any paper containing both Chinese and Korean any time soon, but I want to be able to recognize them (notice I said "recognize" not "memorize." Memorization hurts). 1800 sounds impressive, but our teacher told us that knowing only that many characters would probably put us in the level of First Grader in China. Nice. The curriculum is mucho mucho hard but I'm learning to count the strokes and use Chinese dictionary . I feel like I'm going slowly blind counting all the strokes in a character such as the one above. Give me two months and I might be able to finish counting the strokes.

I'm glad to get a break this weekend and tomorrow's a much anticipated Valentine's Day! Brian and I made a romantic one night get-away plan sans Amelia (thanks Grace & Richard, again). I can't wait!!!

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Science Experiment

We took Amelia to the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore on Saturday. I have not been there since 8th grade so I barely remembered what was there. In recent years, they've really spruced up the place and added many different exhibitions. They were interesting and very well done, geared to peak the interests of both the young and the old. I think Brian was more excited in checking out some of the exhibits than Amelia was. Amelia loved the dinosaur exhibits and the planets, starry stations, but did not care so much for learning about how the different body parts worked. We will definitely have to go back because the place was huge and we forgot to check out the third level completely! Below are some of the memorable Nikon moments.

Amelia checked out sound stations of how body reacts to different sounds. Doesn't she look like a DJ in the making?


Brian was certainly the brave one to to try this, although him craning his chin while lying down showed how nervous he really was:

Replica of a dinosaur fossil egg:

Amelia did not care to stare at this too long:


Father and daughter try to create wind tornado. Very cool effect:

Care to see more?

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MOBA: Art So Bad, It Has To Be Shared

Brian found this link of a museum in Boston and forwarded it to me. It is one of the most hilarious web site I've ever visited. You don't have to really know art to see how bad it is-- it speaks for itself. When you visit the site, make sure to read all the wonderful information about why it makes it such a bad art. You will get a killer ab work out from all the laughing. I guarantee.

You will find delightful example such as below(and NO, I did not paint this):

Visit MOBA (Museum of Bad Art).

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Sweet Child of Mine at Age Three

Sweet Child of Mine at Three, originally uploaded by jisoob.

Amelia has been sick after taking her Three-year old portrait on Sunday afternoon. It's strange how kids can become ill so quickly. Her fever is finally down but she is still coughing. One of the first things we notice when Amelia is sick is her eyes. As you might see in this picture, her eyes are usually very bright and alert. But as soon as she's sick, her eyes become watery and misty.. Her eyes are the window to her health status.

Anyway, here are the portrait pictures. I was too lazy to scan them in high resolutions so they are the web image quality only. I loved #1, #4, and #5.

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Dad's 71st Birthday

DSC_0056, originally uploaded by jisoob.

For my Dad's birthday celebration, we had a family lunch at a nearby Korean restaurant. I picked up the tab and bought the birthday cake as part of his present. The expression on his face in this picture is priceless as is my Mom's. I'm glad he genuinely liked the cake and I am very blessed to have such young looking, vibrant father in his seventies. He always gets compliments on how young he looks. I love him and sincerely wish I can celebrate more of his future birthdays in the future (even if I get confused keeping up with lunar calendar-- I will be better at it next year thanks to my BIL Kevin googling the next 10 years of Lunar New Year for me).

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Mommy, he has stamps on his body

DSC_0073, originally uploaded by jisoob.

Amelia and her friend Natalie went ice skating on Saturday night. This was Amelia's first time skating ever. Mommies bundled them up in snow gear so their bums would be nicely padded :) Both girls did great. Like my friend, Binnie (Natalie's mom) said, the kids at this age have no fear at all-- which makes it great for them to learn something like skating. Amelia even let go of my hands a few times so she could "skate on her own." Amelia had so much fun hanging out with Natalie. She woke up this morning and said, "Mommy, I miss Natalie, my friend." Aww-- I wonder if I had friends this close when I was three-years old?

Now on to the topic of tonight's post title. We finally were able to take Amelia for her three-year old birthday portrait at Kiddie Kandid's Studio. There was another couple ahead of us getting pictures taken of their two sons. The parents, as Brian whispered, looked a lot like Tommy Lee and Sarah Palin. Tommy Lee-look-alike was quite friendly to Amelia and was a very nice person (Sarah Palin-look-alike was a little more aloof-- coincidence?). Amelia pulled on my sleeve and pointed at his tattoos (which included very detailed tattoo portraits of his sons) and said ,"Mommy, he has stamps all over his body!" Tommy Lee-look-alike thought it was hilarious. Amelia's portrait session turned out great too. What a difference one year has made-- last year, we were literally horrified at how much Amelia was throwing a fit over while getting pictures taken at this very same studio.. Today she was all smiles, chatty with the photographer and followed the directions exactly. She did not display an inkling of annoyance. She was quite cheery and happy to be there.

Gosh if this is how she's going to be the rest of the year, I am truly relieved and happy that she is now three. In my book "THREE" is the most magical number, thank you very much.

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