Lily and Daddy reading a book:

Daddy: “What’s that picture of?”
Lily: “Hopscotch?”
Daddy: “Yes, those are little girls playing hopscotch.”
Lily: “Lily play hopscotch too!!”
Daddy: “I’m sure when you go to school, the other little girls will teach you.”
Mommy: “I’ll teach you, baby.”
Daddy: “Daddy has no interest in playing hopscotch, baby. Sorry.”
Mommy: “Mommy was the hopscotch queen, baby. We’ll play together.”
Lily: “Lily Mommy play hopscotch!!”

Our pretty little Lily. I’m trying my hand on photography, and editing. What do you guys think?

Little Miss Lily is now just under 21 months old. She’s growing so fast, and I’m not sure where to start when it comes to updating about her. I’ve been bad at updating her site. There’s too much going on to remember it all, let alone sit down and try to organize it all into a post. So I’ll write on whatever I can remember at this moment.

On February 26 of this year, we moved into our brand new house. Little Miss Lily seems to be adjusting well, outside of the first couple of days when naps and sleep times were a bit more challenging because she was scared of being left alone in the new house in her new room by herself. But after explaining to her what all the new different noises are (cars, the washing machine, the dryer, etc.), she settled in well and has been sleeping her usual hours everyday since.

She loves the stairs and loves being able to climb up and down them. She loves her new room, and she especially loves “Mommy Daddy’s room” — which at the current moment has no furniture in it (we have our bedroom furniture coming in May), so she sees it as her big, giant “toy room”… unfortunately.

We took her to the Vancouver aquarium for the first time, and she was almost “manic” about all the different sights to see there. She ran from one tank to another, pointed at everything, wanted to know what everything was. Her famous question right now is, “What’s that?” Even to things she knows. She seems to be testing if we’ll give her the same answer to the same question twice. Or something?

At the aquarium, she made a little boy’s heart go flutter-flutter-flutter when she randomly gave him a big hug. Much to his surprise, this was something completely unexpected, and by the look on his face, he was a little tongue-tied. Promptly after Lily’s random big hug, he sought out another little toddler girl and gave her a hug. I think he’s on to something!

Our wonderful little Lily is a perfect little toddler. She is almost always happy, and she is a remarkably well-behaved toddler, given her age. She whines here and there, but she is for the most part a really good listener. She speaks up a storm, and she says hi to everyone who passes by her. She asks their names, and she introduces herself and us, and she tells them goodbye when they leave. Every time we go out to eat, she is the most popular baby there among the waiters and waitresses because she always has a wave, a hello, and a big smile for them every time they pass by our table.

Our little Lily is also a major cuddler. She cuddles every chance she gets, and she constantly asks for “Daddy hugs” and “Mommy hugs.” We are absolutely soaking up this age because everything can be fixed by a mommy hug or a daddy hug. When she bumps her head, she asks for a daddy hug and says, “Daddy’s here. Everything all better now.” When she feels badly because we said “No” to her a request of hers, what makes her feel better is asking for a mommy hug instead of whining for the object of her current affection again. I hope this phase lasts forever. It is easy to fix her world’s little blunderings when all she wants is a hug to make everything better again.

Miss Lily also appears to like boxes. She organizes her favorite things about a billion times a day: in the box, out the box, in the box, out the box. It’s almost obsessive compulsive, if she weren’t the age where this is normal! We can almost see the wheels in her head turning and turning and turning.

Our Lily has a loud voice, just as we had predicted from the day she was born. Her voice has graduated from being simple squawks of hunger, to demanding “DADDY HUG!!!” to wanting “PEAS, MOMMY, PEAS!!!” It’s the Vietnamese side that she has inherited. It is often amazingly confusing to hear such a loud sound from a tiny little girl who is still at the 25th percentile of her age in height and weight!

One thing is for certain: with this amazing little personality that is blossoming inside her, we have no doubts that she has the potential to be a strong, beautiful, confident, compassionate woman when she is older. We are doing nothing less of encouraging such a human being out of her now. And we are already proud of who she is, in this tiny 23-lb-ish body of hers.

As we face Lily’s 2nd year of life, it has come to my attention on more than one occasion that parenting is a wild ride. Yes, you’ve heard it from me, folks: parenting is hard, confusing, emotional, revelating, and everything in between. I know, I know, it’s not exactly rocket science that I just discovered this, but well, this is my first time doing it and while I know that there have been countless others who have done this before me, it doesn’t exactly make it easier for me.

I struggle on a daily basis with being a parent. Everyday I have questions about whether or not I’m being the best mom I can be. Everyday, I think about how I can be better for her — more loving, more patient, more there for her. During the first year of her life, it was difficult, to say the least. Transitioning from being a two-person family to being a three-person family was hard for us, though enjoyable and beautiful at the same time. Every step of the way, I had questions all long the path. Questions about what to feed her, when to burp her, when to stop breastfeeding, how long I should breastfeed, when her naps are, when I should go back to work. If it were up to me, I would still be at home, on a full time basis, with both Lily and her daddy.

But alas, like 99% of the world out there, we can’t just dedicate our complete attention to raising our child(ren), unfortunately. I know I don’t talk about it a lot, but when I went back to work when Lily was only 6 months old, I struggled with a lot of emotions. The guilt, the shame, the idea that I was letting her down. The fear that she would lose that connection with me, or she would forget me, or she would not attach as much to me. I feared that I wouldn’t be as big a part of her life as she is in mine, and I feared that I would miss out on all the little daily milestones she had.

And for some parts, I was right: I missed out on a lot of the daily stuff, but I’m grateful that her daddy could be there when I was not. I still struggle with this all the time. I want to be the best mom I can be, and sometimes I feel like I fall just short of this. Where I felt my mother had failed in her parenting me, I want to correct those mistakes the second time around, in my own parenting with Lily. I want to not only be completely physically there, I also want to be completely emotionally there. There have been sacrifices that I have openly and honestly and happily made for my Lily, because the decision to have her was a miracle decision, and one well planned through and well thought out. She was a planned baby. We wanted to create her. We wanted her here to make this world — our world — a better place. And sometimes I feel that by not being there all the time, I am letting her down.

I was the eldest child. Naturally, or maybe not so naturally, I am used to being the caretaker. When my family isn’t doing well, it is a reflection of me. I take a lot of inner responsibility for how happy my family is. When we struggle, it is because of my failure, not anyone else’s. Because of this ingrained characteristic in me, sometimes I feel that I am letting my family fail because of my own failure.. by not being there enough for them.

It wasn’t Lily’s decision to be born, and it wasn’t her decision to exist in this hard world. We try to give her everything she is worthy of, and more. Not just all the Christmas presents or the Birthday wishes. Not just all the toys and the games and the awesome singing and videos we let her watch. Not just all of that, but also the many things in life that she should have merely because she exists. The constant love, the constant attention, the constant play therapy that she should be getting. The lessons in life that she should grow up with — knowing that she is special, that she is loved, that she should be confident in her very existence because she is meant to be here, because she is meant to exist, because she is meant to be alive. The lessons that we try to instill in her, ingrain in her, that she is one of a kind, and she can be proud of who she is and where she comes from. We want her to be constantly, at least while we can control it, be filled with love around her. We want her entire world to be filled with love. We want love to encompass her every breath, her very existence, her every environment and setting that we put her in.

Because I am a daughter of a mother myself, I realize how important the relationship is between a mother and a daughter. The daughter takes away with her everything from her relationship with her mother. The good, the bad, the neutral. Everything from that relationship helps shape who she is, who she becomes, who she will become, and what she is capable of becoming. I’ve witnessed both damaging and beautiful relationships between mothers and daughters. I have firsthand experience on what the relationship between a mother and daughter can do to a soul. I have firsthand struggles out of this relationship, and I’ve grown up wishing my mother could have done things differently. While I have come to forgive my mother for the many unintentional mistakes she made, and even have come to love her for them, I fear of making similar mistakes — or even overcompensating for them — on my little Lily.

It took me close to 30 years to forgive and love my mother for everything that she is, and everything that she is not. And still, I have my bad days where I regret the life I grew up in. I don’t want my Lily to spend 30 years of her life in that same journey. And sometimes — well, I should be honest: MOST of the time — I wonder if my life experience has come to haunt me in my new journey as a mother. I don’t want to be the highly anxious, hyper-vigilant mother so that I can over-compensate for my mother’s own journey. But I don’t want to make the same mistakes. The cycle has to end somewhere.

Everyday I struggle with this. Everyday I am painfully aware of what kind of mother I want to be, and what kind of mother I don’t want to be. Everyday I have moments where I think I am doing her more harm than good. Everyday I have moments that I have failed my family. Everyday I struggle with this. Everyday I struggle with not being there for my family, for my baby, for my husband. Everyday I struggle with not being a good mother, or a good wife. Everyday, I struggle with this. This is not easy, and this does not come easy.

And so when I go off to work, I count down the hours to when I will be finished, so I can go home to my family, so I can just be there. I count down the minutes when I can be good to my family, when I can be better for my family. I wonder if I have been gone too long. I wonder if she would resent me for going back to work (and yet, there was no other choice in the matter). I wonder if I am doing her a disservice by not giving her a mother for so many hours out of the day. I wonder if I’m not being a good wife by being away from my husband. I wonder if I’m not doing enough for my family. My beautiful family who I live and breathe for.

And then, I look at my Lily, who greets me every morning with kisses and hugs, and a big smile on her face. Who runs to the top of the stairs when she hears me open the door every evening, and exclaims, “MOMMY!!! MOMMY!!!!!” Who excitedly tells me to “SIT!! SIT!!” as soon as she sees me after work, so that we can instantly play, or spend time together, or sing and dance, even before I can get out of my work clothes and into my pajamas, even before I can take off my jacket, even before I can put down my bag. Who starts babbling about what she did that day and who she saw, and what she ate for lunch. Who almost always starts singing a favorite song to me that she’s been singing with Daddy all day long.

My sweet husband, the father of my Lily, always tells me what she is doing everyday while I am away. Sometimes I even get pictures and videos of their day together. Their dances, their games, the new things she’s learned to do. And I feel like I haven’t missed so much after all, being a voyeuristic fly on their wall while they spend their days together. And I feel less guilty, but shamed that I wasn’t part of their life during the day. I feel proud that they have such fun, great days together, where he can dedicate his entire being to her existence, and pick up where I have left off. Yet at the same time, I feel ashamed that I can’t also do that. I feel proud that he is helping me raise her and be there for her. I feel proud that he is the Daddy who had an integral part in teaching her to read. The Daddy who sings and dances with her. The Daddy who taught her the alphabets and how to sing the ABCs’. And yet, sometimes, I feel like they are growing right in front of me, and I am missing the beats entirely to their song. Sometimes, I feel a little left out.

I often wonder if this is just me, or if all parents who work feel like this. I wonder if fathers who work outside the home feel like this. I wonder if this is my intense struggle alone, or if others feel like this.

I look at how happy my Lily is, how healthy my Lily is, how cheerful, sensitive, kind and compassionate my Lily is. I look at what a firecracker of a personality she has. I look at her strong sense of self and her proud confidence of who she is and who she belongs to. I look at how she is so sure of her presence and existence in this world, where others have fallen short even after so many years of living. And I think… I must be doing something right, if she is this happy, this healthy, this confident in her world.

I must be doing something right, even if I’m not doing everything I want to be doing. And I must learn to feel solace in this. Because my Lily needs me to be happy, and my Lily needs me to take care of myself, and my Lily needs me to be happy for her.

Lily hit off 2010 with turning 18 months old, as I mentioned in the previous post. So far, 2010 is going great. We’re not a “New Year’s Resolutions” type of family, but this year, it was sort of forced upon us. For one, we were looking to get into a new house after the (what seems like) spontaneous sale of our current home. After a roller coaster ride with the first offer and having it fall through within 48 hours of making an offer and having it accepted, we were discouraged, freaked out, stressed, and tired from the whole house hunting scene. So, when we found this house, we were over ecstatic, and we didn’t want to jinx it. After an excruciatingly long week of having an offer accepted and then waiting for all the “conditions” to fall into place before the closing date (today), we finally, finally can say that we are officially home owners! Of this beautiful, brand new house:

It’s a 3-story split-level home. The first two stories belong to us (3 bedrooms), and the 3rd story is actually a basement suite, to be rented out. We also have a coach home above the garage, also to be rented out. It is a great thing to be able to have income every month to help us pay for the mortgage. Besides that, as we grow as a family, we’ll be able to reclaim the basement suite again and make it our own. It will be sweet!!

Of course, Lily’s favorite part of the house is by far the stairs. She wants to climb up and down it every time we go and visit and have another look. That’s all she wants to do. Stairs is the big thing in her life right now.

In other news, seeing that Lily is now 18 months old, we decided to mark this awesome time in her life with a hand print in plaster. She loved being part of the mixing, and she was so good at paying close attention and following directions. She only put her hand in the plaster when I asked her to, and then she was so excited about what she did, she couldn’t stop talking about it (or rather, pointing to it over and over again, saying, “Hand! Lily hand!”). Then she had to drag Daddy into the kitchen to show him what we just did as well.