This Christmas, I received 3 happy lights. H got me two different models, one of which P had also purchased for me. These are the people who truly know me well - a gift that is both an object and an experience! 

Next year, I'm purchasing only experiences for people. One of my cousins' kids received three Power Ranger toys, which he'll probably play with for 10 minutes. Baby S now has three baby dolls (one that H bought, one that I bought, and one that my aunt bought), two Baby Shark stuffies, and too many outfits (mostly purchased by me - woops). She actually will not sleep without those 3 baby dolls though, so I guess they are being used. How did she develop this personality?  

Meanwhile, I've been trying to substitute coffee with matcha, which has a slightly milder caffeine content (supposedly). Here's the matcha latte with oat milk at The Garden: 

While I've been to The Garden many times, this was actually the first to try their matcha latte, and their quality is fantastic. Not gritty, not bitter with just a bit of sweetener, and a good amount of that matcha umami brightness. Their chocolate chip cookies continue to be perfect, and I will go back soon, just to look at their plants. 

Time to start using that caffeine kick to plan for next year. On this week's list To Do: 

1. Contact a preschool for baby S
2. Start potty traning
3. Read 3 more books to meet my target of 20 for the year
4. Get a hook for the shower to hang my shower poof
5. Declutter to make space for the new baby - nesting has started! 

C came over to visit, and since we're both always craving sushi, I thought we'd treat ourselves to a beautiful sushi platter from Sashimiya:

This was only the regular sushi platter, and not even the chef's special! Look how many vibrant, super fresh pieces of sushi we got! I will definitely be back, maybe even this week. The chef chooses what type of fish to use, based on the varieties they receive, and so the next platter might have a different assortment of sushi. Exciting. 

The California roll used real crab meat, and it didn't need excessive amounts of mayo to generate flavor. I regret giving one piece to baby S to try, because she kept on asking for more, more, more! I want more sushi...

Speaking of baby S, she's definitely spoiled already, especially with food, because we give her whatever she asks for, other than really sugary food. With salty foods, we'll try to rinse off any sauce and salt before sharing it with her, and even then, I'm sure her daily sodium intake is probably too much. We can only make do with what we have though, and fed is best... 

She has also been showing more personality, and one of those traits would be a general lack of perseverance. Today, she figured out how to stack up blocks, and had a huge tantrum when she knocked down her tower and couldn't get past 4 blocks. It terrified her poor grandma, who was also playing with her at the time. What can you expect from a less than 2 year old toddler? 

The positive I see is that she knows how to express her emotions. It's going to be a long journey for her to learn to be patient and anger management...

On a side note, there has been a very persistent fly in our house for the last 3 days. Usually, flies in our house land on a window and get the smack down pretty quickly. This one must be a different mutation because it has been able to dodge all of our attacks. It's also smart enough to perch on surfaces that are harder for us to smack. 

Even though I'm a mom now, I still do things like forget to eat and drink coffee and snack all day. I'll stay in my sweats and hoodie, browse YouTube and sleep late. I always thought responsible moms had to be more mature, but maybe I confused mature with responsible. I make sure she's full, has a clean diaper, and gets enough rest.

 

On the other hand, because I'm too busy feeding her and working and doing other house stuff, I sometimes forget to eat. Then, I end up eating a bag of chips and a whole carton of guacamole, because it's convenient. 

My newest excuse to be too busy for eating is that our kitchen sink is still out of order, and it's a hassle to cook at home, while stuck at home, working from home. Our contractor just called to inform us he won't be able to make it to work on it tomorrow because he had the Moderna vaccine, and now he's running a high fever. Mercury retrograde is real.   

The kitchen is also my favourite excuse to get take out. We decided to pick up big balls of rice and raw fish from Samurai Sushi near Oakridge Mall a few days ago. I regretted buying sushi from here, because the quality of the fish is extremely low. The main attraction is the volume of the sushi rolls. Each piece is about the size of my fist. If you're going to get sushi take out in that neighborhood, don't save the extra 5-10 minutes to stop by Sushi Mura instead. 

Circling back to being responsible versus mature, I do think I tend to forget I'm supposed to be an adult, and I'll end up playing with the kids. Since COVID19 restrictions lifted a bit in BC, I went to visit my cousin and her kids, let my kid socialize with other humans that are closer to her size. I ended up having a blast, throwing plastic balls (immature!) and playing with yoyo's with my 3 year old nephew. Of course, I was keeping an eye on baby S the entire time, or at least I made sure that one of the great aunts were around to watch her... Responsible! 

Regardless of my maturity level, I feel like I am trying to teach baby S to spread joy and love and lalala, all the sparkly rainbow unicorns. Today, I asked her to go give her grandmother a kiss, and she speed crawled over to grandma, and gave her a big sloppy bite on the face! Her idea of a kiss is with her mouth wide open, so that she can leave as much drool as possible on the other person's face. Grandma's comment at first was, "Aww, that's so sweet!"

A few more slobbery kisses later, grandma's next remark was, "I hope my face doesn't smell like your saliva!"

As if babies have smelly saliva... 

And it's the first Sunday of 2021! 

2020 was full of huge life changes for us:   

• Had a baby, and I still remember to brush my teeth every day  
• Visited Victoria and other parts of Vancouver Island 
• Lots of housing decisions (renovations, selling, buying, moving, etc.)
• Sold my car

It feels like we were stuck in limbo for a while, during the first 4 months with baby S, mainly from lack of sleep, but then she got the hang of sleeping (I have my husband to thank for sleep training her). Even with COVID-19 raging across the world and slowing things down, time seems to have flown, and I'm afraid to blink, in case I miss one of baby S's milestones. 

She's been making the motions of learning to crawl lately. Before she makes that leap, I'm trying to soak in these last few days of watching her roll around our apartment in the morning, as I make my first cup of coffee for the day. Today, I'd like to thank Tofino Coffee Roasting Company for fuelling my day. 

 

We picked this up from our weekend in Tofino last year (wow, feels so strange to type that...) and we finally got around to trying it. Old Growth, mediam roast blend, great with the Aeropress. I used 3 clicks on the Porlex mini to grind the beans. 

For me, there is usually a sense of resetting on January 1st, but this year, it's just a continuation of the same old from last year (again, so strange to type that...). There's always Lunar New Year to look forward to. 

Picked up a dim sum platter from Sea Fortune for $38:

From the left corner and going clockwise, this platter includes: 

    -4 shrimp dumplings

    -3 sticky rice in lotus leaf wraps

    -4 panfried radish cake 

    -3 bbq pork buns

    -4 siu mai

There were also a few spring rolls, in a separate box, which I thought was quite thoughtful because it helped to prevent the crispy skins from getting soggy: 

Probably the best deal we've come across, and definitely the most aesthetically pleasing dim sum takeout around the Lower Mainland, just missing a piece of parsley garnish, or a carved carrot garnish. 

The standards at Sea Fortune are pretty high, and both H and I were satisfied with the quality. Did I mention all of this food was only $38? 

You might think that it's a lot of food for just the two of us, even though we had some leftovers for breakfast the next day, but hey, stop judging us! I'm still breastfeeding, and constantly hungry. Baby S is still waking up in the middle of the night, but luckily, not as often as before, so I actually get a few REM cycles. I'm starting to feel a bit more like myself again!

Except when she's latched on to me. I get this wave of anxiety, and I think it's because I actually have to stop and sit down while nursing her. I can go on my phone, surf the net, read an eBook, but it's still a restriction on my freedom. Pumping is not a solution either, because I hate doing it even more, especially with all the parts to clean, and don't even suggest switching to formula. Baby S practically licks the floor, and I swear, if I don't protect her with the antibodies in my breast milk, she'd be sick everyday. 

There is light at the end of the tunnel though. We finally started her on solids at 6 and a half months, so my boobs will belong to me again soon enough. More updates on the solids in a future post.  

Today's haul consists of:

 

Royal City brown butter toffee and pumpkin cream cheese donuts, a cup of medium roast coffee from Heights Coffee Co., and The Bench Bakehouse cheese and onion twist.

Glenburn frequently hosts Royal City on Sunday mornings, and has now added in a new local coffee roaster from the Burnaby area to their line up. I've had Royal City donuts before, and really enjoyed them. The pumpkin cream cheese has a hint of saltiness from the cream cheese, and is delicious with the powdered sugar dusted over the donut. They've figured out a way to inject just the perfect amount of filling into their donuts, so that they don't explode and make a mess everywhere, but every bite has some filling. 

Good luck to the new coffee roaster. There's so much competition in town now, they'll really have to work hard to stand out. 

After Glenburn, we visited the Vancouver Farmer's Market, as we figured with COVID, it'll be better to shop outdoors. Very glad we did not miss out on this onion cheese bread, which we had with EVOO, truffle oil and balsamic vinegar: 

 

We also got one of their apple pie double baked croissants -  no photos as it has been devoured before I remembered my camera. Very flakey, with many crispy bits on top, as a croissant should be. 

The aftermath: 

So far, being back in Vancouver has been a mix of anxieties about the pandemic and meeting up with our loved ones. The grandparents were able to come visit and helped us babysit once or twice before gatherings with individuals outside of our household were discouraged by our lovely Dr. Bonnie Henry. 

It had been a while since the grandparents were left alone with baby S, and what an experience it was this time around. The use of white noise to help infants fall asleep is quite common nowadays, but both sets of grandparents were very confused when we instructed them to ask our Google Nest to play this loud annoying sound when putting baby S down for a nap. 

One set of grandparents asked Google to play "white music", and instead of noise, somebody (presumably a person of Caucasian decent) started singing. 

Both sets of grandparents had a tough time enticing baby S to take the bottle, now that she could recognize mom as the source of food and comfort. H and I received many calls to "come back home NOW," but every time we would tell them we're on the way, when really, we were still finishing up whatever we were doing.  

Baby S eventually calmed down with them, and by the time we arrived home, she was an angel again. 

I can't wait for our curve to start flattening again, so that our babysitters can return.