Our Saturday

Gerritt & Sophia laughing at Mommy making faces outside


Gerritt clowning around


The flowering cacti can be surprisingly beautiful!


Spike admiring the new ground cover


The newly planted strawberries

Today is Saturday & I happened to have a rare day at home (I am working a nursing shift at the hospital tomorrow instead). After some deliberation, we've decided not to go to the Skagit Valley Tulip Fesival (it's too windy & cold), & catch up with our chores at home. The day started with an attempt at Gerritt's potty training. Our well-meaning efforts led to a big urine puddle on the kitchen floor when Gerritt peed right through his "big boy" cotton underwear. Diaper safely back on & yet another lecture about being a big boy followed, along with the promises of Daddy buying the Superman monster truck if Gerritt goes poo-poo in the potty. We've certainly underestimated our son's motivation since he shocked us by doing just that shortly after breakfast. Another lesson to teach the kids is that Mommy & Daddy keep their promises, so we quickly packed them in the car for a trip to Babies"R"Us to buy Gerritt's truck. The Superman wasn't available, but Gerritt was just as happy to be rewarded with the Avenger.
Since there were still a couple of hours left until Gerritt's nap time, we headed to the Home Depot to buy some plants & seeds. While Sophia napped in the car under my husband's watchful eye, Gerritt & I were excitingly shopping for tomato, strawberry & pea plants. I also bought Nasturtium, Oriental Poppy, sunflower (thanks to my blogging friend Yulia for the idea), carrot & pumpkin seeds. I wanted to plant low-maintenance vegetables & flowers the kids might enjoy. I also couldn't resist a couple of miniature flowering cacti & bought those as well to be displayed in the kitchen window.
Gerritt's & Sophia's naps followed in the afternoon while I cleaned the house & my husband worked on cutting & fitting the new trim (we had our living room & hallway wood floors redone last weekend). Later in the evening I convinced him to take both of the kids to Korean grandma's house for an overnight stay. I was planning to relax & read something fun, however, it was not to be. I started with pulling a couple of weeds in our back yard & ended up with planting all of the plants & seeds bought earlier today. I worked until 8:30 pm & it was almost dark by the time I went back inside. The evening ended with me watching an independent Kazakh film Tulpan. All in all a pretty productive & satisfying day. :-)

Gerritt's Favorite Books. Sophia Can Stand!

Sophia standing up all by herself


Gerritt is riding his car while going commando (don't ask me why). His likes to play the game of getting stuck on the bricks & yelling, "Help, help, help!" Our neighbors were concerned hearing his screams until they realized it was a game.


Another visit & a sling ride at Korean grandma's house


Sophia practicing her standing skills with Gerritt's bike


Proud Gerritt "driving" his sister Sophia

Our first 2 weeks with our new Russian nanny Irina went well. Sophia likes her & even allows Irina to hold her in my presence. Irina is a hard worker, organized, very cleanly, & loves children. She is pretty strict & reminds me of my Mom & former teachers in Russia. I usually find the house the same way I left it in the morning (often cleaner) despite 3 kids under age of 4 being there all day. My house is the cleanest it has ever been, mostly because I pick things up before Irina comes & at the end of each day. It is too embarrassing to leave a messy house for her. I love not having to drive in the mornings in order to drop Sophia off at the daycare & enjoy coming home for lunch (another chance to snuggle with my little chub muffin). Irina is a wonderful cook & the whole family has been enjoying her delicious meals!
My job Nurse Practitioner job is going well. I referred a patient to the ER this week due to abdominal guarding & positive rebound tenderness (signs of peritoneal inflammation, which indicate possible appendicitis). It turned out she had an ovarian cyst, which ruptured later that day. Better safe than sorry... Last week I also had Implanon insertion & removal training. Implanon is an implantable (under the skin of an inner side of the non-dominant arm) progestin-only contraceptive device. It is similar to Norplant we had on the market a few years ago, but much simpler (1 instead of 5 rods). The next step is one supervised Implanon insertion, & then I am on my own!
It is getting harder & harder to work as a nurse at the hospital. I don't really want to be there since my mind is elsewhere. Thankfully, it has been pretty easy since as a per diem RN I am the first to float to other departments. For example, last weekend I was a one-to-one caregiver to a suicidal patient, & after a few hours took care of a confused elderly man. Most nurses love the fact that I am a nurse, so I end up doing many nursing tasks (dressing changes, medication administration, tube feeding, peripheral IV starts, etc.). It is not easy to say goodbye to almost $45/hour, so I'll continue working as a nurse for now. Nursing got me through the tough times (like when the economy took a downturn & there were no Nurse Practitioner jobs for a while) & is my "bread & butter," so to speak.
Gerritt, Sophia & I continue our weekly library visits. Gerritt loves to play the educational games on the library computer & enjoys selecting a few new books to read every week. The list of his favorite books includes:

The Bouncing, Dancing, Galloping ABC by Charlotte Doyle
Froggy Goes to School by Jonathan London
The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear by Don & Audrey Wood
I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean by Kevin Sherry
Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle
Go Away, Big Green Monster by Ed Emberley

We've actually had to order the Little Blue Truck book from amazon.com since Gerritt wants to read it every morning & night, sometimes several times in a row. He has it practically memorized. He likes this book so much he takes it to bed with him & even to the store when I need to pick up a few groceries!
I've started to read some Russian books to Gerritt as well. Surprisingly, he enjoys repeating the Russian words & rhymes. Our library at the Crossroads Mall has a nice collection of Russian children's books, so we've checked a few out.
For the past couple of weeks Sophia has been standing up more often. She used to stand for short periods of time with my support, however, has been standing longer on her own while holding on to a window sill, bench or chair. She also learned to lower herself from standing to sitting position without falling. I believe walking is not too far away!
Gerritt & Sophia have bonded really well. They love to play together. Sophia follows Gerritt everywhere so they often end up in the bathroom. Gerritt likes to shut the door & then play with flickering lights in the dark. Sophia laughs hysterically, & everyone is happy. Gerritt also runs around the house pretending he is the superman with the kitchen towel draped around his shoulders. I lift him up in the air & do "twirly, twirly" to simulate flying. Gerritt gets plenty of exercise jumping on our floor mattress. He usually gets a running start & then falls on top of it laughing. He then proclaims that it's "Mommy's turn," so I have to do the same.
When we go to the mall for a toy car ride, Gerritt often insists Sophia join him too. He has such a proud smile on his face pretending he is driving her around. I usually hear many comments from people walking by how adorable the two of them look together. :-) Every time I see Gerritt & Sophia playing together, I feel so happy that have each other & will not repeat my experience of being an only child. All of our hard work of having 2 kids so close together has been worth it!

Sophia Is 11 Month Old Today!

Proud mama with both babies


Standing up by herself


Learning to stand up using the bed in the guest room


Sitting on a potty chair


Bath time with brother Gerritt

Sophia is 11 months old & I am starting to think about her 1-year birthday celebration. We had a big 1-year birthday party for Gerritt, complete with cake & professional photos while wearing traditional Korean clothes. I want to do something as special for Sophia, just because her 1st birthday is the first of many milestones to come.
She is now trying to stand up, usually while reaching for something she is not supposed to have (e.g., a TV remote control or one of Gerritt's books). Sophia stands for only a few seconds before plopping back down, but the standing episodes are becoming more frequent. She has discovered Spike's water & food bowls & has already spilled the water twice. She was fascinated with dry dog food & my husband & I caught her eating it a few times. What a face! :-) Sophia's crawling has gained speed & she is able to follow us around the house with ease. Sometimes we get panicky because it is too quiet & we realize Sophia is not in the same room with us. After frantic, "Where is the baby?," we usually discover her quietly playing in the bathroom with a plastic tub full of bath toys or in Gerritt's bedroom pushing the buttons on the radio-clock.
Sadly, Sophia too has a preference for Mommy. She will put up with my husband, but if I am in the room, she wants to be held by me. Sophia doesn't really like to be held for long periods of time since she is always on the move. She has learned to be more independent since Gerritt is still so young & needs his "Mommy fill" often.
Sophia's loves to take baths & has been bathing with Gerritt lately. They play surprisingly well together. Usually when I give Sophia a bath, Gerritt wants to join too, so I just decide to "kill 2 birds with one stone."
Sophia likes to read books, however, is more interested in eating them. So our reading selection has to be limited to the books with thick pages that can withstand Sophia's sharp teeth. She loves the Baby Einstein Mirror Me! book, but is terrified of the textured book about animals. She just looks at the lion's face on the first page & starts to scream in fear.
I've started to put Sophia on the potty chair, usually after her naps. I've had mixed results, but was really encouraged when she pooped there once. Only my husband's loud protests have kept me from taking a photo & posting it on the blog. I guess, after working in the healthcare field for almost 10 years my boundaries of what is appropriate to share are blurred. :-)

"My daughter is everything I never knew I always wanted." ~ Tim Sentner

Happy Easter!

My lovely assistant


The end product


Yummy!


Gerritt & his friend Anna enjoying eggs for breakfast the next day

We had a quiet, uneventful Easter. The morning was filled with eating breakfast, snuggling, reading new books from the library, playing, & Gerritt's potty-training. In the afternoon, I put Gerritt down for a nap which gave me just enough time to color Easter eggs. Gerritt was pleasantly surprised with the colorful eggs upon waking up & wanted one "opened" right away. He had no interest in eating it once he found out it was just plain & white inside. For the rest of the day he kept opening & closing the fridge & taking various-colored eggs out. He wanted to lick them, play with them, & ended up dropping several. He even went to bed with 2 eggs - one yellow, one green. :-) Once Gerritt was asleep, I quietly returned them into the fridge. I had a 4-day work week (including Saturday nursing shift at the hospital), so no Easter baskets, egg hunts, or Easter bunny photos were in the plans. Perhaps next year...
I lost my camera & haven't taken any photos for over a month. After exhaustive search all around the house, we finally bought another camera. My last few blog entries were without photos & it was great to get back to photoblogging again!

Smooth Transition

I have now worked at my new job for 3 weeks, & can honestly say that I love it! I like my coworkers & the clinic manager. I love being at home with my family every night & having weekends off. I can't believe I get the whole hour to myself for lunch! I am also not exhausted physically & emotionally after getting home from work, probably because most of the patients I see are young & healthy. Instead of nurse's scrubs & Dansco shoes I can now dress up & wear my nice jewelry. It is a clean, pleasant, stress-free job for the most part, especially compared to bedside nursing.
It has its challenges, of course, otherwise they wouldn't call it work. For example, I referred my first patient with ectopic pregnancy to the ER & also managed a woman who came in for IUD removal & turned out to be pregnant. Other interesting clinical cases involved a young gay man with strange-looking sores all over his pubis (turned out to be a bad case of eczema since all of the STD tests came back negative), & a young Iranian woman asking me to explain to her what orgasm was like & ways to achieve it. It is certainly a privilege to share such intimate details of my patients' lives & to have the skills to make a difference. I am actually excited about going to work in the mornings, wondering what each new day will bring!
I haven't always felt this way about being a Nurse Practitioner. When I first started practicing in January of 2008, I had clinical confidence issues & felt like an imposter for half of the time (which is apparently common according to the Professional Issues class in my Master's program). It took time for me to get to where I am today & I feel like I have finally come home. I am actually thinking of dropping my per diem RN job all together (probably after we pay off our home equity line of credit). I am already dreaming of the next step in my career, perhaps opening my own Women's Health clinic (?).
Sophia's Russian daycare went out of business last week, so we are making new childcare arrangements AGAIN. I really liked one of the nannies working there, so I offered her a job. She will come & take care of Sophia in my home. My friend Nadira has also decided to join (since she has not made new childcare arrangements either), so she'll drop off her 2 girls here as well. Irina has just moved from Russia a couple of months ago, & with no English proficiency was grateful for this job opportunity. I really hope Irina & I get along, & this will be the start of a long-term, productive relationship.
Sophia is so mobile now that we put the bed mattress for sleeping on the floor to keep her safe. Sometimes my husband wakes up first & goes to take a shower leaving her alone. I've decided it was only a matter of time before she fell off the bed, so she now sleeps on the floor with Daddy. I am so fortunate to have a helpful & family-oriented husband! Part of the reason my new job transition went so smoothly & my leg healed up quickly was that he slept with Sophia for more than 2 weeks so I could be well rested & focused.
Last Tuesday Gerritt had professional photography session through the Yen Lui studio. It was organized by our Bellevue College's toddler class. We took a group photo with all of the Moms & toddlers, & then individual shots. Gerritt sat on my lap while holding his stuffed dog. I can't wait to see it!

Lan Lan's Chicken Soup

This recipe was inspired by our friend Lan Lan. She wanted to bring us some food during the first few weeks following Gerritt's birth, however, she "couldn't cook." So this soup is Lan Lan's version of preparing a meal with minimal effort & skill involved. I revised this Asian classic by adding a few more ingredients, but the idea is the same. This soup is delicious, aromatic & qi-nourishing (read more about supporting qi here).

Ingredients:
1 whole organic chicken
4-inch fresh ginger root, sliced
5-6 medium cloves of garlic, sliced (or less/more depending on your taste preference)
4-5 dried dates
4-5 fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced (can use dry shiitakes as well, soak in water prior to adding to soup)
3-4 dry cardamom pods
1 oz or more of dry black fungus (soak in water prior to adding to soup & cut in bite-size pieces or cut in strips)
Water, enough to cover the chicken
Salt to taste

Clean the chicken under cold running water & cut off any excess fat. Place the whole chicken into 5.5-quart pot, cover with filtered water. Add the remaining ingredients. Bring the pot to a boiling point, then turn to simmer. Cook the chicken for up to 2 hours, or until meat is tender & falls of the bones easily.

Remove the sliced ginger & cardamom pods.

Serve with brown rice & kim chi (or other Korean-style pickled vegetables).

Side notes:
- All of the above ingredients may be bought at a specialty Asian grocery store(like Uwajimaya).
- Black fungus, while almost tasteless, is rich in iron & has a crunchy texture.
- Cardamom pods are often used in African, Indian & Middle Eastern cooking. They have a unique smoky flavor.

Thanks, Lan Lan!