my 2020 books i’ve tracked on goodreads. i’m missing a few here and there, but really glad i kept track of the books i finished this past year. most of these were library borrowed–another shoutout for libby! my favorites: a tree grows in brooklyn, the great alone, talking to strangers, olive again, and american dirt.
this is the end of my summer reading thus far as we started back for planning for school this past week, but just wanted to record what i finished since my last book post. feeling tired and don’t really want to do a book review for each one so just grouped them into categories of books i liked, books that were okay, and books i didn’t enjoy. have to credit my summer reading productiveness with not checking instagram/facebook as much for the past 3 months.
books i recommend/enjoyed:
olive, again
the most fun we ever had
the hate u give
calypso
talking to strangers
books that were okay:
ask again, yes
the testaments
dear girls
the bookish life of nina hill
the last romantics
books i didn’t love
normal people
the alice network
Took four days away at Laguna Beach to just get a little time away from our normal lives. Airbnb’ed at a 5bedroom house a block away from the beach as our extended family was supposed to join us but they wound up not coming to stay overnight. But we enjoyed lots of family time at the beach, walked around the beautiful coastline, and had lots of gelato 😉 Even though we didn’t go far, it felt nice just to get away as it made me just appreciate our family that much more.
Now…it is time to prepare for another school year.
Came to the beach today but a completely unplanned trip. Originally was going to do some hiking with the kids but the trail was closed and on our way home saw a great looking beach and little girl wanted to go collect some shells.
So currently I am sitting on a yoga mat with our tennis shoes covered in sand and a bag of half eaten goldfish crackers also covered in sand. E is collecting shells with a trash bin that we use for the car and running around loving it. Little P is happily indulging himself with sand sprinkled goldfish crackers and I am sitting here having made peace with sand and just enjoying being in the moment. So thankful for little moments like this.
first of all, we are almost to summer break! two more weeks and i have survived!!! i read a few posts last week from other teachers who were in a similar boat as me of being the primary caregiver of young kids 5yo and under while also trying to a decent job of teaching online synchronously and i felt such a sense of relief in that i was not the only one doing this. the biggest lesson i learned from these 9 weeks: have low expectations for myself. sounds bad, but i had a tough time adjusting because i was so frustrated with my lack of productivity for what i would typically get done during a teaching week and also on the home front. but i’ve learned to take it easy on myself and be okay with less work finished, not having the best lectures presented to my students, and not being a super-mom at home who has tons of energy to do art crafts and fun games with my kids while i’m at home.
my ap students took their ap chem exam two weeks ago and that was a huge relief when they finished off a year of really hard work. we’re wrapping things up in chem and physics and now i’m starting to think of what school might look like next year for us in the fall…most likely we won’t be back to normal. i’ve been reading more with less usage of instagram–surprise, surprise and i still have not downloaded the app back to my phone and am enjoying not being as tied to social media. although—think i need to do the same w/ facebook—started checking it a lot for ap chem teacher groups and have been checking it a lot to fill my instagram void ;P.
but today, wanted to track the books i’ve read during the last 9 weeks.
also am once again starting middlemarch by george eliot. third time’s the charm right? it takes me SO long to get into the book but once i’m in, i find her characters so interesting and well analyzed. if i read the book with a highlighter, i would be highlighting so many different lines as she’s chock full of so many deep insights on human character!! need to stay in the momentum though and would actually like to complete this book this time around.
Four weeks of shelter in place now.
It has been a crazy month. Of routines changing week to week just as I feel like I’m starting to get used to things. Of worrying about covid19 and whether or not Paul’s hospital would get a surge. Of being a stay at home mom with no husband to help out at home but also having to somehow figure out how to full time work and hold live classes for students online. Of having childcare help change almost weekly and getting less and less of it as covid gets worse. Of prepping for school until midnight most nights once the kids are asleep and still feeling like I’m super behind and just doing a subpar job. Of shortened patience when I am in need of deeeep wells of patience to serve my family better. Of emotional rollercoasters of happiness from sweet moments of being with my kids and despair as I look at what is happening in the world around us while my 1yo is having a hardcore temper tantrum. Of finding it hard to pray to God as my immediate needs and crying outs seem so trivial compared to all the true hardship people are facing right now.
That being said though this was the first week where I felt settled into our schedule and things didn’t seem like a complete mess. I still changed a diaper during our staff meeting and E came in during my zoom chem class about 8 times in a one hour period, but I felt like our family was getting into a rhythm that was kind of working. P is going to the nanny in the mornings as my mother in law isn’t coming anymore and we are doing okay. I help E do school on zoom and hold my own classes while E is learning how to be independent for long stretches with puzzles, legos, and audiobooks to listen to until lunch. We go pick up Philip and then have the rest of the day together until dad gets home and have dinner. In between I get dinner ready and have also been consistently exercising while p naps. Dad puts the kids to sleep and I start on school prep to get ready for the next day. I am exhausted by 8pm but things have been doable. Which is good as it looks like we are in this for the long stretch until summer.
I find myself clinging to Christ more tightly as I feel so inadequate navigating all of the daily life business on my own. Trying to pray more knowing that these small concerns of just making it through the day are still laced with the eternal concerns of my soul and it’s longing for God—mundane or not. Forging onward through the sacrificial laws of Leviticus and even in wondering what applicable truth I am going to get out of my bible reading about how to sacrifice an ox, God humbles me to remind me that the Bible isn’t about me but him—my obedience to come to the word daily and also seek more about his perfect holiness.
So this is where I am. Still figuring things out but thankful.
::Edit:: wanted to share some highlights from the past weeks too as I sound too dreary up above.
*i have been cooking a lot and also in turn eating a lot as it has been my joy of the day. But E has been baking a lot with me these days and we have made all sorts of treats together. It used to be so stressful to cook/bake with her but it has been awesome to see how much more helpful she can be in the kitchen
*one night I was having a particularly hard day right at about dinner time and I was getting very frustrated by the smallest things. Paul came home and saw my state and decided to make dinner time a night out at a “fancy restaurant.” He got a memo pad and took our orders and poured E juice and me wine. Turned off the lights and lit candles and served the dinner that I made as our waiter and just made E and me giggle at how silly it was. E claimed it was the best dinner ever.
*i have been biking almost everyday on the peloton for the past month and doing some sort of physical activity once p naps during the day. It has been giving me strength and an energy boost that I so need at about 3pm and I also really have needed to exercise bc I’ve been gaining weight from all the eating I’ve been happily partaking in. have been proud of myself for keeping it up and for doing something to care for myself.
*i deleted Instagram from my phone two weeks ago and it has been kind of great for me. I was checking it waaay too often during the last month and posting too much and I felt like it was not doing me any good and actually made me more anxious about covid and just mindlessly wasting my time on it. The first week I felt withdrawals as I kept picking up my phone to check on stories and really missed it. This week I feel so free from social media!! I have been checking still on my web browser through my phone but maybe just once every few days. I’ll probably download it back again later but I feel like I’ve gone through a social media cleanse and I honestly am so glad to have done it.
*finished two books the past month: 1)A tree grows in Brooklyn: so recommend this one! It has been on my to read list for a long time. A story of a girl growing up in deep poverty during the early 1900s. 2) the perfect couple: this one was more of a quick beach read that had a fun whodunnit plot . 3) halfway through reading “a gentleman in Moscow” but not loving it.
Thankful this morning.
for warm coffee
for a happy toddling child getting into everything and a 5yo tweenager who is independently making messes upstairs
for a house to keep us dry from the rain although our roof needs repair
for stable jobs in the time of covid. Spent the last two weeks bitter about being the primary caregiver of 2 under 5 while also working full time with a husband who is gone for most of the day working at the hospital. And also in fear for the husband wondering when the surge will hit our city and his hospital. But how shortsighted when we actually have opportunities to serve so many people right now.
for Jesus’ death on the cross. Thank you Lord for saving me…when I see the reality of my sin it is so disheartening but your blood has covered me. Please give me wisdom and strength so that my life will be used for your glory
p is almost 6 months now which means my maternity leave is about to come to an end and the start of a busy school year. i have two weeks left…which reminds me i really need to take his 5 month photo and we also need to figure out whether we are really going to have a dohl (a korean 1st year party) or not for him and book a venue asap. a lot of different things have been on my mind the last few months but the big one for me has been time and what it means to have time well spent so mainly am blogging tonight to help make sense of it for myself.
i’m finding by the way that not putting my blog post updates on facebook and knowing that very few people actually read this has helped me to just crank out some posts for some self reflection or milestone updates without being terribly careful about grammar or how to best phrase my thoughts. so not the best quality of writing that i’m producing here, but i’m going with for now, better done than not done at all.
so back to time. when i was home on maternity leave with e for 12 months, i really did struggle with how i used my time. i felt from being a teacher who was always on “go go go” for most of the workday and rushing from task to task to the sudden change of being at home for the entire day with a little one who required constant physical care but having such mental downtime was a big shock to me. i constantly struggled with not feeling productive enough or feeling that i was missing out on something important i should have been doing. i made daily task lists for myself and went on domestic overdrive while complaining about not getting enough sleep and feeling tired for most of the day. i equated making the best use of my time to being efficient with my time—making mass quantities of one baby food at a time, making a ridiculous number of breakfast sandwiches and freezing them so i didn’t have to take 10 minutes out of my morning to make myself a meal, and other silly tasks that i took pride in completing.
with baby p and the six months i had for maternity leave, how i best spent my time was something i thought about often. what did it mean to make use of my time well in a way that was glorifying to God and be a good steward of a resource that I suddenly seemingly had more of?
the first few months i really focused on taking things slow. i let my body heal and recover from labor for the first two months and did not leap into life at full speed and i have to say i was really thankful for that time. e was in school for most of the day so once i got used to getting her ready for school and then dropping her off every day with p, i had the full day ahead of me to rest and just focus on taking care of him through the day. i didn’t feel boredom or a desire to fill my day with tasks–i just really enjoyed being at home and the quiet that came along with it. at month 3 once p was allowed in the gym playcare, i loved going to the gym after dropping off e and enjoying a workout while showering in peace without worrying about when p would wake up from his nap. i spent time with other moms and enjoyed deepening friendships and after months of feeling bible reading being a joyless task on my to-do list, actually reading God’s word and meditating on it through the day was becoming richer and i was so thankful for specific areas of growth in my spiritual walk that i had been struggling with for years.
e then got off of school for the summer and that threw me off in my daily schedule. i had to figure out how to entertain a 4 year old who was used to doing so much at school while taking care of a much more alert baby and i found myself easily getting irritated at the non-compliance of a talking child and my patience being much thinner than ever. i used to pride myself in my ability to not let anger get a hold of me with e but it only took one week of summer break for me to sin so much more in this area that i realized that it definitely wasn’t my own strength of patience, but the sheer fewer number of hours i had to spend disciplining my own child through the day that gave me this patience. i fit in summer camps for the rest of the summer break so that e could have some fun in the mornings and then she had a 2 hour quiet time in her room to read or most days it wound up her taking an hour long nap after looking at books or listening to audiobooks. or sometimes we would all go on trips to the zoo or seaworld with friends and i dealt with my 4 year old who became sooo cranky by 2pm from not napping. i got in exercise at the gym and also at home on the peloton and felt like life was starting to balance out again.
but i never really felt like i knew the answer to my original question of how to best utilize my time. i felt like i figured out how to structure my day as a mom of two that worked for us, but i still felt this nagging sense that i was not still making the most of my day. and this time, making the most of my day did not mean having meal prepped for the entire week by sunday night or having 5 kid lunches packed for the week and ready to go. i didn’t crave that intense busy-ness that i did before and also realized that when we were on “go-go-go” mode, it made our entire family pretty unhappy from being too tired.
i started reading a book called off the clock by laura vanderkam and it has been addressing the struggle in my heart for time stewardship. and i have to clarify—i do not in any way at all think that being at home taking care of my children is a waste of time. it is my job when i’m home but it was the sense that i wasn’t making the best use of this time in dealing with my spiritual life, and wasn’t using my time in a way that was of the most service to my family and friends while tending to my own needs. i could have spent four hours at home with e and p, but how much of that time did i spend talking to my four year old versus absentmindedly trying to keep her occupied with an audiobook so that i could prep dinner or do my next task? how much time did i spend scrolling through posts on social media instead of reading a quality book that had been on my to-read list? or getting through a chapter of bible reading so i could check it off as done instead of relishing God’s word and tasting the sweetness of all of its promises? how i often complain about the lack of time for myself i have as a mom when i actually do have time to do things such as read good books, pray or enjoy small pleasures if i structure it into my schedule instead of haphazardly trying to squeeze it in at the end of the day when i have such little energy. i’m only halfway through the book but am definitely getting challenged and convicted of my lack of mindfulness in my time spent. once i finish the book, will blog again about some good takeaway lessons for me. 🙂
so in korean tradition, a big deal is made out of the 100 days. from what i know, i think it was first celebrated because a lot of babies just didn’t make it beyond the 100 day marker after they were born. and as much as i make fun of or criticize a lot of korean traditions and customs that don’t make much sense to me as a second generation-er, when it comes to any sort of celebration, i am always down and it is also a really nice marking point in p’s life as a newborn and for me as a mom to a newborn.
so p is now a little over 3 months now which reminds me we do need to do the 3 month photo at some point before we hit the next month-ha. and really, i can’t believe just two months ago, my whole body was still achy and recovering from birth. p has had his first set of shots, cries and screams really hard in the carseat at night, is trying really hard to roll over (please don’t do this too soon!!), and has been laughing and smiling it up like crazy. did i already mention that he is such an easy baby?? if we had him first, i’m pretty sure that i would have had our second baby the very next year. or maybe not because i would have had no other standard to compare him to to know that he was an easy baby.
but out of all baby milestones which to be honest, i don’t really care all that much to make a deal out of, the most important one ever for me has always been the very first night of uninterrupted sleep. this past week, he has slept for 2 days in a row all the way through the night and has finally given me and dad actual real rest!!!! we both woke up saying—did you feed him??? thank you little p! knocking on wood and hoping this is good at least until his 5 month sleep regression.
i have been feeling so blessed through our marriage and i am so thankful. we went through some really tough patches when we were working out issues when his mom was living with us during the weekday to help watch e around 2 years ago. in retrospect, her living with us wasn’t the problem–it just helped to bring out the sinfulness already in our hearts and we had to constantly address the consequences of our sinfulness. but really thankful now–God really did use this time to strengthen our marriage and i feel as though i can trust him so much more. i almost feel like i needed something drastic to really help me see the depth of my own anger issues and tendency to get easily frustrated and mean.
this past month too has been really eye opening in seeing the difference between happiness and joy. i could have had a fantastic morning and afternoon and then when the mid-afternoon tiredness creeps and right as i start to prepare dinner and go through the simultaneous chaos of chopping and baby diaper blowouts and preschooler wanting me to read four books to her, i start to feel sorry for myself and think…sigh, it would be so much easier to be at work for 12 hours and then come home. i know–such stupid thinking and also super unfair to paul who comes home after working so hard to a cranky wife. and i let myself wallow in “moms have it so hard” self-pity until i get to have some alone time at night. i realized how easily i let my mind go there and how i excuse away my sinfulness by thinking it is normal to feel this way and how little my every day contentment truly comes from Christ and living out the gospel. i have moments of happiness when i am just enjoying being a mom and spending time with family and friends but it wasn’t joy because it wasn’t rooted in my identity in Christ and i know this is so because as soon as living gets a little tough, i easily sink into a grumbling heart.
but these last few weeks, i have been praying for the word of God to actually take real fruit in my life as bible reading has been so mechanical and cold for the past few months and i feel like it actually has. i’ve been so much more aware of the state of my heart and the sinful thoughts that run through my head and instead of letting them play out and lead to angry grumbling, i have been trying to pray and fight it as i remind myself of the truth of the gospel in even the mundane thankless chores around the house. i realized it is better on rough days to not have dinner ready for the family if i am going to sin in having a bitter heart and instead it’s better to have paul come home with mexican takeout. i didn’t know how i put that pressure on myself to take care of the kids well, have the chores done, a nice dinner cooked, and the house semi-clean because i felt like this was my main job while i am at home during maternity leave, but i realized that a much more important job that i have as a mom and wife is to make sure that my heart condition is taken care of first.
so in many ways, feeling really thankful these days. not because life is peachy rosy because most of the time, it’s just the mundane day to day, but because God really has been so faithful to us in helping us to see our sins and change little by little.
I’ve been meaning to write this blog post as it has been on my to do list for awhile now and it’s really for me so that I can remember. I have a shockingly short term memory–and especially when it comes to painful events or times of challenge or hardship–I am really good at forgetting. I think it is my weak bodied way of coping and surviving and it is also one of the reasons I can be at times foolishly optimistic. But here it is, my birth story of our dear baby boy Philip.
The whole week leading up to my due date, I had a lot of contractions at night–some were so painful that I was sure that I was truly going into labor. and after spending 3-4 hours at night timing the contractions and confirming that they were getting more and more painful, we went in twice to labor and delivery only to be sent back because I was no where near I needed to be dilated. The whole waiting process or going to bed thinking “maybe it will be tonight!” was exhausting and I was just wanting little boy to come on out to the world. I was also slightly scared of getting induced on my actual due date and just wanted things to start naturally.
But by my due date, no sign of baby except for the contractions that happened at night so I went in to get induced and Paul’s mom came to stay with E. Before we checked in to the hospital, Paul and I took a walk around Balboa Park, hoping that would also get things going and then had some gelato and crepes (our last date night) before our baby came.
I was checked in at 6:30pm and was given the cervix effacing medication at 8:30pm. I waited four hours and the painful contractions started at 11:00pm. After two hours, I was finally dilated to 2 cm and I gladly took the epidural. This was soooooo much better than my labor with E—then, I had about 12 hours of labor at home with contractions that were of the kind you would see on sitcoms with women screaming out in pain and anguish while grabbing their husband’s hair. I only had to endure 2 hours and the pain was honestly no where near that of my first delivery!! After the epidural, I started pitocin and slept for 5 wonderful hours. It was the best sleep that I had all week—no feeling of pain at all and I didn’t have any anxiety because I wasn’t waiting for anything—I was already at the hospital and felt taken care of. When I awoke at 5:30am, I was at 5cm and my water naturally broke. by 8am, I was ready to push and again, I was expecting to push for a long time (I had pushed for 3 hours with E) but within 10 minutes, out came baby Philip at 8 pounds 7 ounces and 21 inches. I was so thankful for a smooth delivery and for the nurses and our obgyn.
I have a lot more to write but to quickly end this post for now as it is almost time to feed baby p, I have been loving being at home with p thus far. He has been SUCH an easy baby—loves sleeping in the carseat when we go out, is sweet tempered, has started sleeping 6 hours at night since week 9 (thank you Lord!), and is full of smiles and coos. we have been taking him on hiking trails and long walks, we went on our first trip up to Los Angeles with him for a few days at an airbnb, and soooo thankful that E has been such a loving and patient older sister with him. and I’m just really thankful for this down time right now too—as E is in school most of the day, it has been so nice to be at home. time is going by too quickly though and I can’t believe that I only have 3.5 more months to go before work starts up.
I know—not a lot of deep insightful thoughts in this entry, but I wanted to make it quick and better done than not done at all. I will provide more meaningful reflection in a later post (sooner than later!).
PAULYESTHER 