From Mama to Bo My dearest Bo, In a few hours, you turn two. Two. I have been your Mama for two full years, and I am still catching myself in mild states of disbelief. You are an extraordinary human being even at your age. You do typical toddler boy things, and also don’t. Your… Continue reading We love you fiercely, we love you softly. (Letters to our son as he turns 2)
“Alexa, please play Five Little Monkeys,” I speak out to no person in particular. We’re in the midst of one of the countless feeding-a-toddler episodes that parents know too well. Our 15-month old is getting restless on his booster chair and is kicking off the tray while trying to push his belly out of the… Continue reading Raising a child in the age of Alexa
It’s 8 o’clock and my baby has been sleeping soundly since I nursed him a little past 6. In a couple of hours, he will squirm and cry in his sleep and I will be running and panting my way up the stairs to comfort him. The rest of the night will be a blur.… Continue reading The Fallacy of Postpartum Bliss
It’s been two weeks since I became a mom, and never have two weeks felt so long and so fast at the same time. I knew then that our lives would change. We had planned for, dreamed of, and prepared for this baby. But knowing and experiencing are at times as distant to each other… Continue reading Becoming a mom
The most powerful thing my body has ever done is to grow a life inside of it. No personal miracle that I have ever experienced comes close to discovering the scale of my body’s capacity: to create, transform, and nurture another life. It is a physical and emotional journey so incredibly overwhelming that I still… Continue reading What I really think about pregnancy
“Sometimes chaos is the very thing that deliberately shakes up our neatly ordered worlds in order to get us out of the neatly ordered ruts that have kept us stuck,” says Craig Lounsbrough. I just stumbled into a place commonly called a limbo. There are three big things that may have brought me here: becoming… Continue reading When being lost is okay
Dear Baby Willey, Currently, you’ve been in my tummy for 18 weeks. My app says you’re as big as a sweet potato, about 5.5 inches and 5 ounces. Another app says you’re the size of a croissant, and I’m imagining how your little face is reacting to the size references these pregnancy apps are giving… Continue reading To our baby inside me
We were biking along the streets of Luang Prabang, Laos. It was a December morning and another particularly chilly day (for my tropical standards). The streets were quiet---almost meditative. We stopped at a neighborhood pharmacy, parked our vintage Japanese bikes on the curb, and navigated our way into asking the middle-aged Laotian proprietress for a… Continue reading Really, we’re pregnant?
In multiple ways, I was prepared to do well as a first-time expat leaving my country, family, friends, career, routines, lifestyle, and almost everything that I knew too well. My husband and I decided to move to the Middle East when he accepted a new position. I “retired” from my career as assistant vice president… Continue reading What I didn’t expect about being an expat
A few weeks from now, I’ll pack my life in boxes to live overseas for the first time. I’m leaving with my husband carrying the role that I’m still slowly coming to terms with: a trailing spouse. Although we have known of the move for five months now, the spiralling emotions take over as the… Continue reading Thoughts of an Imminent Trailing Spouse
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