I can’t believe time has gone by so fast.  This time four years ago, I was admitted to the hospital and was about to welcome our only baby girl into the world.  Epidural?  No thanks!  I’m too anxious to see my girl that all the pains sort of subsided.  The only thought I had was holding my girl in my arms and thinking about my two boys at home.

I couldn’t contain my tears of joy, as I sobbed while pushing Sophia out.  Out she came after five pushes with a healthy scream, jet black hair, beautiful pinkness all over her, ten toes and ten fingers.  It was amazing that she latched on to me right away on my first trial at nursing her.

Edited to note: I failed to mention that without the help of my wonderful parents and dedicated sisters/husband, this trip would not have been possible.  Yes, we needed the whole “army” to take care of our four children, I mean with Parker alone (20 months) who gets into everything, you’d need two people on skates just to catch up with him.  A million thanks to my family!!  And I also posted some gratuitous pictures as well if you just want to skip over all the blah blah blah.  

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Have you ever had one of those “it works for me” ideas and wanted to share with the world?  Well, I have one and it’s so mind-bogglingly simple that I kick myself for not coming up with it sooner.

Here’s the scenario: you have a wedding to attend to in three weeks in Houston (where you’ll be reuniting w/40 of your relatives whom you haven’t seen in five years plus), you finally shed off the baby weights (except the muffin top, damn that’s hard to do!) after 18 months, you dusted off that pretty couture dress you mom bought a while back (price tag attached) and pray with all your might that you can pull it pass your thunder thighs, mission accomplished except you can’t zip it up!

Did I catch your attention with the title of this post? If so, read on and you’ll find out why, my dear reader.

Sophia woke me up around 5:30ish this morning with her usual visit to mommy and daddy’s room. I can hear her little steps down the hall and finally a push to open our door. But she just stood there, by the doorway, afraid to be ushered back to her room like we always did when it was too early during the night. I refrained from calling out to her to see how long she can stand there by the door. So finally after a few minutes, she advanced to daddy’s side of the bed and was pulled up by him, cozily planted under the flannel sheets and blankets.

My heart goes out to the thousands of people who have lost their houses in the California fires and ones who have lost their lives.   It’s truly tragic and devastating, to say the least.   My prayer goes out to you for your safety and hope you will be able to rebuild soon.

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I went to a wake for a mother of a friend the other night. She was 75 years young, passed away from a heart attack. It was very sudden and unexpected since she got a clean bill of health a week before from the doctor. That left the family very puzzled and shocked as it did for me when I heard of the news. We saw her this past August and she was full of life, smiling and having a good old time.