Maternity Leave

For the better part of ten years, Liz has been very active in Tuesday night Japantown coed volleyball league.  Though it's a friendly league and not the highest level of competition in the city, most everyone has known one another a long time so a lot of bragging rights are on the line.  I'll brag for her here and let everyone know that over the last decade she's earned a generous stack of championship t-shirts.

But for now she's taking maternity leave from the league and her team, Sumofish.  So for her last game, Huelan and I came out the the gym to root her on.  Huelan loved the gym and is a undoubtedly a capital-P Player in the making.  But for now, she filled the gym with her cheer of "Mama, you're the greatest!"

Chuc Mung Nam Moi

These photos just make my heart leap. They evoke all kinds of memories both real and ancestral; seeing her with that beaming smile and ao dai with a perfect fit makes me feel like a million Vietnamese dads did before me. I only wish my dad was here to see it too.

Here are some pics from Tet, the Vietnamese incarnation of the Lunar New Year. Ba Noi brought a suitcase full of food and Huelan's first ao dai.  She loved it, and she rocked it.

Also included are Superbowl Smoke Extravaganza, Avery Brooke, and a few randoms to fill out February.

Bustin'

She's actually not bad, even though I know for a fact she stole some of those moves from her mom.

37th Trimester

Up until very recently, Huelan's answer to "What's in Mama's belly?" has been,"Food.". But the last few times she has acknowledged that there's a baby in there.

So naturally, she wanted to see what it would be like to be in a belly again.

This is a weird picture and kind of scary, but for some reason I can't stop looking at it.

50/50

With what turned out to be Huelan, there was hardly any discussion about whether we'd find out the gender- we definitely wanted to know whether we were expecting a girl or boy.  And we've been smitten since the moment we learned she was a she.

But this time it was a little different, at least for me.  Though Liz wanted to know the gender from the get go, I was on the fence.  Obviously the first thing any parent wants is a healthy baby. Beyond that, this time before we know the gender is full of possibility.  But also lined with an undercurrent of desire and emotion.  I'm not sure how to respond when people ask what we "want."  My standard response is that we already have a girl, so my only chance at having three kids is if this one is also a girl, then we might try for a boy.  And if we ended up with three healthy girls, what's better than giving your daughter a sister or two?  We'd be ecstatic. Ambiguous enough?

Well the truth is that I couldn't allow myself to want either because that would mean that if we had the other, there might be some kernel of disappointment in the fact.  Maybe that's just me being uptight, since I know we'd love any kid we have, and people declare their preferences all the time.  But like I said, this time it just felt more loaded than the first time.

Well, as with most matters in our house, Liz's point of view prevailed..   From our experience with Huelan's ultrasounds, we kind of knew what to look for this time around. Before last Friday, the last sonogram we had was about 6 weeks ago, gestation week 14-ish. Though it was early, we saw all we needed to see to know what was coming.  Since it was early though, the technologist told us "not to paint the nursery yet."  Last Friday, the 20-week sonogram, was the official, unmistakable confirmation of what we were privately stewing on for the past month and a half.

Want to know too?  Scroll down to the next post.

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Chim

In Vietnamese, slang for a little boy's penis is chim (pronounced "cheem"), literally translated to "bird."

You can see his chim in the top sonogram if you know what you are looking for. Imagine that he's sitting bare bottom on a glass coffee table and you're underneath looking up. Hint: his chim is pointing due east.

He and his chim are due July 2, though the doc thinks he's a little ahead of what they originally thought, so he might be a tad earlier. Either way, he'll share a Snake sign with his Ba. It's too early to tell from the profile whether this one will look like Ba, but the bald noggin is a strong indicator.  Sorry kid.

Cleanliness

Sometimes it's a struggle- we have to drag her into the bath then drag her out.

But sometimes it's easy and it's the best thing ever.