I love snow pea shoots.

I'm just saying.

A twist on wedding first dances

So it's not a new thing or even an uncommon thing for couples to have a twist on their first dance as a married couple. We've all seen plenty of YouTube videos and seen them at weddings we've been to. To be honest, first dances like that are losing their element of surprise since so many people are doing them, and well, if you can't dance, you shouldn't be doing it. Luckily, all the ones we've seen have been awesome, even one that I watched over and over again on video because the bride was a dancer. Heck, my husband and I even planned to do one, but because it wasn't high up on our list of priorities and well, the dance we chose was more to be funny and so required that we not have any rhythm and I was having a very hard time doing that, we scrapped it last minute and decided to stay traditional. It worked out better that way anyway--I would have had the jitters all throughout the "predance" which was what I had been looking forward to for a long time.

Our first dance

Anyway, enter this first dance. Not your traditional first dance for the bride as a married woman with her father...I just want to say now, that if any of my kids (even if it's my daughter, if I may be so blessed) want me to do this, I am SO in.

On the note of weddings, I'd just like to congratulate our faaaaavourite Vegetarian and her new hubby, one of our BFFs from waaaay back, on their spankin' brand new marriage! YAY! :)

(And I just realized I never wrote about all our friends who got married this year! Must get on that! Stay tuned!)

Gotta love moments like this...

Click here.

Ever wonder where the dip above your lip came from?

Food fight

My son and I got into a bit of a fight yesterday. We've been giving him more and more finger foods to eat and the boy LOVES cucumbers. I think the coolness also feels good against his teething gums. We let him have a few to eat yesterday and when it came time to stop because dinner was coming, he threw a fit. The kind of fit you pray your child never throws in public. I don't know where he learned this behaviour, but he was flapping his arms, rolling around on the floor, burying his face in his arms, signing for "more", even after we had told him that the last one was the last one.

Oh boy.

I guess it's a good thing though that he likes vegetables, right?

Thoughts on Motherhood: Reflecting on the past year

I've been a mother officially now for over a year. Where did that year go? How on earth did this happen? (Don't answer that. I know, I'm just saying it feels CRAZY!)

There are so many things I've been meaning to note about motherhood and I haven't found the time to jot them down to include in a post. There are so many things I've learned, so many things this little boy has taught me about myself, the world, people, parents, and I wish I could take note of them all so that I can show him what he's taught me in just the year he's been here. jughcv b nb nnhghnm m bnfc   cvbf  v fvbfvb  b (D-nut says hi -- you should see how he smiles when he bangs on the keyboard...and then how confused he looks when I retract that privilege).

Here are a few things I've learned that I had no clue about before I became a mother:

1. You'll get mad at your baby. But it's not mad like how you get mad at adults. It's a mix of a lot of things - frustration because you don't know what the baby wants sometimes, irritation because you're still adjusting to the changes in your own life, impatience because the baby doesn't understand what you want the baby to do, irritation because the baby is learning to misbehave...all sorts of things. But it's very temporary, you get over it, you adjust, and you fall back in love with your baby again.
2. Hello gravity! So sad. So sad. Gotta go work out to beat this! Or maybe I should just let it all hang until I'm done having babies. Eeek!
3. Goodbye quick metabolism. Please come back? I'm begging.
4. Parents complain about the stench of their babies' poo. Grandparents don't.
5. If you thought you had a wild imagination or if you thought you were a worry wart, just wait until you're a mother. 
6. Active fathers help make happy mothers.
7. Lotion will be your best friend. You've likely never washed your hands nor skipped post-wash moisturizing this often.
8. Babies' bottoms are even smoother than you thought.
9. People stare and judge when you have a child acting out in public, and you need to figure out what's more important to you -- what they think of you, or correcting your child's misbehaviour.
10. You develop a new respect for mothers everywhere once you have your own.
11. Other young kids seem to like playing with you, or maybe it's because now, you know how to make them smile.
12. You get lazy sometimes. And even though you do, it's okay, as long as you keep it to sometimes.
13. You adjust.
14. It's possible. Hearts melt.
15. Nothing's scarier than when you're scared for your child.
16. There's a lot you don't know about your baby when it's your first. You almost wish you had a manual that came with him/her. Instead, learn to find good baby information sites and be friends with your paediatrician. 
17. What the heck is normal body temperature anyway?!
18. Suddenly poo and pee aren't as gross as they used to be.
19. They learn on their own if you let them.
20. Things like lifting your head, reaching, holding, passing from one hand to another, rolling over a BIG DEALS.

There's so many more, but I thought I'd just list a few.

Happy early Mother's Day all you mothers out there -- past, present and future.

Love,
Momma Treeh

Nicknames

Over the past few years I've earned a few nicknames, some, temporary. I've come to love them all and sometimes wish they were permanent. Here are my faves.

Bridechilla (2007-2008)
I loved this one so much, I made me a shirt that said it. No Bridezilla here. I'm glad that people thought I was chill during all the wedding planning. It happens too often that a woman turns into a big ugly monster when she's planning for what she thinks is the biggest day of her life. She easily loses sight that it's actually the first day of THEIR lives, together, as a married couple.

Buntis/Preggers/Preggo (2009/2010...)
People who love me called me any and all of the above when I was pregnant. I loved it. "Buntis" translates to pregnant from Tagalog (Filipino) to English. Sometimes I'd even be called "The Buntis". And since I'm the only one of my sisters who's still planning to have kids, I think this name's gonna stick, at least on my side of the family. YESSSS!!!

Momma/Mama (2010 onward?)
Okay, this isn't so much of a nickname if my son is using it, but how about when your girlfriends do? I'm the first of my circles of friends to be a mom, and they've taken to calling me Mama/Momma. Awesome. What mother doesn't want to be called Mama/Momma, right? I hope they call me that forever.

Lunch time

Going out for lunch when I don't bring any gets really expensive. I don't even want to think about how much I spend in a month on eating out. I don't drink lattes, but that, right there, is my Latte Factor. Yuck.

So, as an alternative, as many people do, we resort to frozen lunches. It's quite a challenge to find a really good one that, well, doesn't taste like a frozen lunch.

Enter President's Choice. They have some pretty good frozen lunches for anywhere from $2 to $5. MUCH cheaper than that fast food crap you get at the food court downstairs, or down the street, or wherever (they're really not that cheap anymore, are they?).

This one is really good.