jennifer patel

I haven't written a post to my Dad on his birthday in awhile. As if my subconscious was aware of this fact, I started reading Promise Me, Dad by Joe Biden. Why? I guess I need to cry even more than I already do about everything. Such a cry baby in my years around 29*. As someone who lost a wife, a daughter and a son, Joe gives the same advice to all grieving people he meets. To slain, New York, officer Wenjian Liu's mother he said: "There will come a time when you'll go riding by a field that you both loved, or see a flower, or smell the fragrance of his suit when he took it off and hung it in the closet or you'll hear a song, or you'll look at the way someone walks, and it will all come back. But someday down the line, God knows when, you'll realize it doesn't make you want to cry. It makes you smile. The time will come when the memory will bring a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eyes. That will happen, I assured her. And that...

1/15/18 1st carousel ride. sure, it was cold and i forgot his jacket and he showed no emotion at all to gauge whether he liked it or not, but alex had fun! Can we revisit the Passion Planner ? It's a bit dramatic to use the word "passion" but I do love this planner. It is goal centered and you can write weekly and even daily focuses (foci?) to keep you on track. Like all goals, you have to stay motivated but getting to write on super, quality paper (sorry, trees) with different colored pens and markers pretty much does it for me. When I was sitting down yesterday to look at the week, I wrote, "Fun day with the kids" as today's focus since there was no school and Wintergeddon might trap us indoors for the next few days. There was so much to do around the house that I started working on things as soon as I woke up. To give Alex an answer to his never ending, "What can I do?" question, I started making a list of chores for him to comp...

On the last day of 2017, I experienced a miracle. I was driving Alex and myself to church in the frigid temperatures of the morning. As I got over on the freeway to take an exit ramp to the intersecting highway, a cop was slowing with his lights on. Even though he was close to my lane, I drove around him and looked in my rear view mirror, watching him stop across the two exit lanes to block the exit. Before I could process what that meant I felt rHonda, my white whale of a mini-van, begin to slide on ice. By some magic blessing from all that is holy, I manged to slide around the curve of the exit ramp past 4 cars who had crashed into the right side wall, staying in my lane the whole time until I found traction again on the ground-level road. I don't have a lot of positive things to say about driving rHonda, but the bitch can skate . I was overwhelmed with relief and thankfulness that we made it without crashing. My heart was working overtime in the cup holder next to me. Upo...

I haven't had much to talk about aside from the routine, day-to-day business of running a household. I was hoping inspiration would come for a fresh Thanksgiving post by today but it didn't. This morning, as I stayed in bed snuggled up to a babbling, happy baby and later watched my oldest ask my sister to snap green beans with him (what he thinks of as a tradition since he was 4) knowing that she feels excluded much of the time, my heart continues to be full. The day-to-day, often uneventful, moments each day brings allows me to savor these heartfelt spaces of time and store them away in a place I can visit when the world rears all the ugly. Every day, I am so  beyond thankful.

his face says it all: mom, you got skillz I've only gone Total Indian wife (TIW) a handful of times in my marriage. One especially hilarious time was when I threw 2017 to the wind and rewound to the year 1950. One of V's students missed the team dinner but still wanted some brown nosing time for his letter of rec from V. Looking back, I think he missed that dinner on purpose. The consolation was getting to come to our house and eat dinner ALONE with Dr. V. I went TIW and fed Alex early, put him to bed and cooked an authentic (Aarti Party) Indian meal for both the student and Vivek AND served them at the nice table. No plastic. Serving men at a table and not joining them might make them think you have no ambitions or talents of your own. You might think the student is full of bullshit as he kisses so much ass, you feel your eyes are going to roll out of your skull every time you walk back into the kitchen. The best part of that evening was that he talked nonstop about ...

V: Are we going to throw Z a Korean 100 Days party? Me: Sure! Let's do it! We counted it out and realized it was in 5 days. Both of us: Nope, no party for Z. Story of our lives. * * * I wish I could tell you, in detail, some of the challenges I've struggled with these first 100 days. I certainly don't want to boast or brag about what an easy time things have been. There are challenges, sure. But at the end of every day, the feeling of overwhelming adoration and captivation overshadow and erase any frustration I might have felt earlier. Looking at that baby and knowing that he is mine makes me feel sublimely happy. I find myself trying to find some kind of annoyance to talk about when people ask how we're doing with the baby. I do this because I feel like this is what is expected. I feel like if I just start gushing about this lovefest I'm living and have felt since they put him in my arms, I am some sort of deviant. Not normal. No one wants to know...

I get to write about my second baby's 100 days and my first baby's forever day around the same time. After writing Z's 100 Days post, I re-read Alex's first 100 Days (with us) post. I felt heartsick that they were the exact opposite experiences. It's not surprising I had a really hard time when Alex got here. I thought the challenges of parenting a new toddler would be immense, but quickly rewarding. What actually happened was Alex got here, through no choice of his own, completely foreign to everything and everyone. He was alone with everything familiar to him gone. Instantly. A 19 month old cannot prepare for goodbyes. He cannot know to cherish the time he has left with the only family he has ever known before he is taken from them. You cannot explain to him what is happening and why. Once forever homed, Alex didn't seem to care if we were there, or not, for months. We cared for him and he relied on us for the basic necessities, but every time he looked...

In his previous life before us, Alex slept on a mat on the floor with his foster mom in Korea. Since I had time to read a plethora of books before we went to get him, I decided that we were not going to start any habits that would need to be changed later. As a result Alex slept in his own bed, in his own room from the very beginning. I had grand plans to do the same for baby Z. Since I'm not breastfeeding, I was going to have him sleep in his crib from day one. But... Then we brought him home and I realized that he was going to be upstairs and I was going to have to walk upstairs multiple times a night. I consider myself in shape, but nothing winds me faster than walking up one flight of stairs when I'm tired. (or always, actually) The next plan was to have him sleep in the Pack'N Play in our room. Baby Z nixed that plan pretty fast as he would not sleep in there... We had a baby box...he nixed that too. It turns out he wanted to only sleep in the Rock thi...

One morning I woke up at 6:30 A.M. I brushed my teeth, put in my eyes, let the dog out, watered the plants, woke Alex up for camp, got Z up, changed and dressed Z, poured milk for Alex to put in his cereal, heated up a bottle and started feeding Z by 7:45. Alex sauntered downstairs around 8:15, poured his cereal, added the milk I poured and ate. Cereal is only one part of his breakfast. The hot portion of breakfast consists of a waffle (frozen from a box...gasp!) and an egg. As I was feeding Z and Alex finished his cereal, he looked across the table and said, "I'm waiting for the rest of my breakfast." I stared at him for a long time, going through the options of what to say and how to say it. Finally I let him know that it was probably time for him to learn how to make his own breakfast...all of it. With careful supervision (a.k.a. major micromanaging) he has been cooking his own breakfast for about a week now. Obviously things started out rough as seen above...

Months ago, Alex and a friend were playing upstairs one afternoon when I heard Alex say, "My Mom say we can't take toys downstairs..." Yes, we once had firm expectations in this house. The no toys downstairs was something I read about in a magazine article about not letting your kids take over your spaces...maybe Martha? Sure, V and I are sleeping less with a new baby in the house. It's not as bad as everyone, dramatically, forewarned us about, but it is, slowly, making us (me) dumber. Maybe more unaware? I'm patiently waiting for the things I think I can get done in a day to unite with the actual number of things I can get done in a day, once again. Old Expectation: No toys downstairs New Reality: Old Expectation: Start the day with a fruit and veggie smoothie! New Reality: No more smoothies! It takes way to long to make and I started doing dumb things like this! Do you know what else takes a really long time? Pre-washing produce after a grocer...