a chronicle of our 5-year pharm student/resident journey

it's been crazy town here the last couple of weeks. i've attempted to finish this post since last saturday - but since then we have finished packing up our apartment, moved and unpacked 50% of our belongings. Eugene had his end-of-residency banquet a few days ago and today is already his last day of residency. there were a few instances when I wanted to just chuck this post entirely but this milestone felt too important to pass up quietly -- today is officially Eugene's last day of residency - which means that our 5-year journey of pharmacy school/residency is over forever and he/we will be entering a new exciting chapter of our lives. hooray!

I've been anticipating this day since...pretty much his 2nd week of pharmacy school 5 years ago so to say I am exuberantly ecstatic would be the understatement of the century. it has been quite the journey - filled with a lot of challenges, a lot of adjusting, mis-communicating/not-communicating and trying to commit to over-communicating, learning to die to ourselves, sleepless nights, powernaps, being crazy busy (him), trying to keep busy (me), eating out of tupperware (him), meal planning and prepping like a machine (me) etc, etc... But as I've been reflecting these last few weeks and looking through my old blogposts from the last 5 years -- I can't help but feel overwhelmingly grateful. Though not always pretty and neat at times - these 5 years made our hearts full, our lives interesting, our marriage stronger and love deeper. so to celebrate God's faithfulness to us in this last chapter of our lives - here's a quick chronicle:

let's start from the beginning. a week before school started, Eugene and I took a train from the OC to LA's union station to try out his commute. he initially had planned to take the train everyday to hopefully avoid the horrible LA traffic commute. we went to union station, took the shuttle to campus, walked around a bit and just rode the train back. All i remember from that day was that it was super hot and humid and we were so intrigued by the mexican fruit cart that was selling drinks outside of the parking lot (we are OC-cultured, LA newbs).

then came his white coat ceremony. this was an exciting day! 

 I remember he was almost late for his first day of class. He also couldn't find his keys after his train ride to LA so I drove to the train station and looked for his car in the parking lot to see if he accidently left them inside (I think he did). his first semester was rough one - full of transitions and lots of firsts, for him - he roughed 4-hour drives (round-trip) to class because he had to stop taking the train because it got too complicated planning things logistically. I remember he had to wake up at 4am to leave the house by 4:30am to beat morning traffic for his 8am class. The first few weeks of school, I woke up with him to make him breakfast and pack him lunch (I think I was crazy...) eventually it got too challenging and this is when my tupperware craze began. that first semester was filled with a lot of tears because the transition was a little traumatic for me to be honest. it was hard going from seeing Eugene everyday to barely seeing him for an hour each night before bed. 

I drove him to his last final (in CRAZY RAIN) while he took a cat nap in the car and then we went to Pasadena for lunch to celebrate the end of his first semester :)

After his first semester we moved out of the OC to be closer to his school. This was the first of the 3 moves we did in those 4 years. We moved in with his family to arcadia/TC area aka asian food galore. his commute to school was less than 20 minutes (yay!) and now that we were much closer, he was able to get more involved with school-related activities. this is when he started getting more serious about considering residency in his future so he started to get busy busy busy!



His busy schedule started to take a toll on us because it was harder and harder for us to spend time together. For most weeks of the semester, we would either only see each other in passing or miss each other completely because I would come home late from work and he would still be gone at school, and the next morning I would have to leave early for work (around 4:30am) and he would still be sleeping. It was a hard season and we had to learn to just accept and re-adjust to new normals all the time.



our move made my commute to work/church about 1 hour each way (opposed to <10 mins) and since he was barely home, I spent almost all my time back in the OC and just drove home to sleep (almost 5 days a week). I got more involved at work, got some really cool opportunities to guest-lecture at the hospital and UCI's nursing program (super fun!) and spent a lot of time with the collegians at our church (sleepovers, late night boba runs and jam sessions!) It was a blessing in disguise -- though I missed my husband and wished I could have spent more time with him, his busy schedule gave me an opportunity to do many things that would have been harder to do if he was home all the time so it kept me busy! We did manage to squeeze in a few late-night date nights during this year - we would meet up after a long day (at around 9/10pm) and eat really good chinese food or korean bbq!



Because we lived so far away from everything, on Sundays after church we would always rush out to squeeze in study sessions in-between dinner plans and meetings/church events. We frequented many different coffee shops and cafes so that Eugene could try to study and of course I tagged along.

studying at Panera

 We also took a lot of naps in the car in the parking lot at Mcdonalds because we couldn't go home in-between things. Eugene was very tired this year haha.

napping at corner bakery

Though it was challenging, we tried our best to stay positive and find creative ways to spend time together. One of my fondest memories of this year was our 4am breakfast dates at Denny's before we both left for work/school. We were only able to eat for about 30-40 minutes but it was sweet!



before Eugene's third (and hardest) year we moved out of Arcadia/TC and moved closer to the land of milk and honey (aka Portos). this was the perfect halfway point for us as Eugene was working in Downey and it was a 30 min-commute for each of us. This was move #2.




P3 (aka third year) was known to be the most grueling out of all four-years of pharmacy school and it did not disappoint. Eugene was super busy with school and had tests like every few days/every week back-to-back. This year, in a lot of ways was a complete blur.


All I remember is him being really busy and stressed and I made a lot of trips to Costco and made a lot of meals. Eugene's love language is definitely food - and his "comfort food" is healthy food (so weird! and sad - for me. I wanted junk food..) so I meal prepped a lot and made a lot of smoothies.

and not sure if I mentioned this already - but Eugene's love language is literally: food.



At this point, for the most part we were seeing each other about 1-hour a week total (10 mins and here and there). As you can imagine - it was not fun or easy.. but again, it was my call to keep busy and try to find things to do! I considered getting a side-job and doing something fun (i.e. trying out for the disneyland parade or working at a fancy cafe!) but decided to do hospice home-health per-diem to fill my days off with things to do. This job sent me to strange and interesting far-away places - I had patients in culver city, hollywood, chino, covina, san clemente, laguna woods, gardena, torrance (places I don't usually frequent) and because my drives were so far and my days were so long I ate a lot of meals by myself. and before you feel sorry for me one ounce, don't worry- they were nice meals hehe.

lunch break for one in gardena 

I will always remember our apartment in downey because of the baby blue wall that we chose (why - i don't know) and that Eugene pretty much used our dining table as his study desk for those entire two years. I think we ate less than 10 meals together on that dining table haha but many study sessions were had. We also ate an ungodly amount of portos cheese rolls. Funny story - this one time, Eugene was able to track my walk to the car because of all the cheese roll crumbs I left as I was walking to my car. (LOL!) a real life hansel and Gretel action right there.

then came 4th year! we found out we were pregnant (yay!) and Eugene was busy doing his rotations! for the most part- the rotations were great and he was home a lot more than usual. however, when I was in my third trimester of pregnancy, Eugene had to go away for 6-weeks for a very brutal ICU rotation. We rented him an Airbnb and we did a huge costco trip for him before dropping him off. By God's grace he survived that brutal rotation and our sweet baby boy waited patiently in the womb for daddy to finish so that mommy wouldn't have an emotional breakdown having to take care of him alone while daddy was away. Asher came about a week after Eugene finished (woo-hoo!)

then he graduated! took his boards. found out he got into a residency. His first words to me after seeing the email at 6am was "I'm so confused" (he had been matched with the first hospital he interviewed at which he said he had "BOMBED" the interview ('bomb' in the bad way) but we were so thankful and happy! 

During this year of residency, we raised our first child together and are now pregnant with our second. In just a few hours, he will be home and DONE FOREVER from the school and residency life. God has so graciously provided him with a job and he starts on Monday.

These last 5 years were probably the most challenging years of my life. I cried (SO MUCH) and had to learn a lot of hard lessons about being flexible, understanding, patient and dying to myself. Eugene was so patient with me and all of my late-night-lets-talk-for-three-hours-because-I-have-to-let-out-all-my-feelings-even-though-you-have-to-wake-up-in-three-hours and so many people have labored in love and prayer for us. It is with so much excitement, anticipation and a little touch of anxiety that I beckon in this new chapter of our lives. I know that even this transition, albeit exciting and so, so sweet is not gonna be easy. But one thing I know for sure is that God is sovereign, He is good and always in control. His grace has carried us this far and it is that same grace I will cling to everyday for the rest of our lives to continue to live with joy, thankfulness and purpose no matter what the circumstances!

Thanks for joining us on this crazy ride! 

P.S. for those of you who are currently wives to students - here is a fun guide that I made from the lessons I learned. Hope it helps! 

life lately: a 5 minute update

woah - major blog fail haha woops! i totally started two different series and left without completing them.. but I have a reason! things have been crazy busy here! a lot of things are happening and these next two weeks are going to be very exciting but I wanted to stop and take a moment to update. I set my timer for 5-minutes so here we go. 

1. summer

summer is here in full swing and it is awesome (+miserable at the same time)! having a toddler in the summer is so much fun! last year, he was only 6 months or so, so we couldn't really do too many things - but now that he is a full blown, walking/talking toddler who is super curious and very excitable - i have been having such a blast! and we are only a few weeks into june, yay! summer has consisted of a lot of outdoor play (splash pads, pool + park days!), lots of smoothie drinking and homemade popsicle eating, and more fun with friends! it's only been slightly miserable because being pregnant in this weather is not the most fun thing i've done -- and i'm really looking forward to spending the thick of my 3rd trimester in the hottest months of the year - but we are blasting the AC all day err' day (sorry honey) and drinking a lot of iced coffee (sorry not sorry, baby girl!)

2. speaking of baby girl...

did i mention that baby #2 is a girl? omg we are so excited!  after we found out that baby #1 was a boy, eugene did an excited fist pump then turned to me and said, "I really hope we have a girl next!" i never knew this before - but eugene has a really soft spot for baby girls! of course we would have been psyched regardless - but we are both so excited for our baby daughter to arrive. we have gotten so many hand-me-downs so far (thank you friends!!!) and I already have like 20 bows for her head (omg.) but yay! this pregnancy has been sooooo different than my first one, for so many reasons: more morning sickness, more dehydrated, less rested (hello, life with a toddler and night shifts!) and definitely less obsessive about what week I'm in and what size my fetus is (i've only taken like ONE belly bump picture...) but more on that later. we can't wait for baby girl to come! 

3. Asher is 17 months! 

I think I've said this at every stage so far but, THIS is for sure my favorite stage so far! despite the toddler tantrums, timeouts, sleep regressions and little tastes of the so-called "terrible twos" -- I have been absolutely in love my crazy little toddler. he is walking, talking (well, babbling) and saying so many words. he loves to read, is obsessed with his da-da and loves loves loves water (pools, splash pads, lagoons, etc) he loves to dance and is currently obsessed with moana videos. he says a lot of words but recently started to say "bless" (as in 'bless you'), "this" (while pointing), and "BAI" (aka 'bye' with a huge smile and throwing his hand up for 0.2 seconds) it kills me. hopefully I can come back and tell you all about the crazies of this kid. we'll see

4. eugene is literally 2 weeks away from being done with school/residency FOREVER. omg. i can cry just hearing myself think that out loud. our lives are about to look very, very different in just a few weeks and I can NOT wait. after 5 years, this long, craycray, busy, and long-distance chapter of our life and marriage is about to come to an end- which means asher will be able to see Eugene more than 2 times a week and we'll be able to consistently eat more than 1 family meal together a week at last. there are so many things I have been feeling and thinking about these last couple of days as I've been reflecting on God's grace to us these last 5 years.. but I'm hoping to reserve an actual blog post for that. stay tuned! 

5. so why the sudden craziness?!
we just found out last week that we will be moving. our short-notice gave us less than 11 days to pack and situate our lives for this big move so you can imagine that this preggo-night-shift-working-toddler-chasing mama has been on the verge of a mental breakdown...but I have been so blessed with so many sweet friends who have offered their time and help to make this as smooth as possible. we have about 6 days left now and I am about 60% done packing -- so that's progress! 

in two weeks from today, eugene will be done with residency and we will (hopefully be somewhat) settled at our new place. i'm trying to not lose perspective in the midst of the craze and find evidence of God's grace in all places - big and small. thanks for giving me a quick break (let's be real it wasn't exactly 5-mins, oops!) but now it's time to get back at it. see ya on the flip side!

xoxo

BLW: Getting Started + "Must-Have"s

In the last 2 weeks, I've gotten so many questions about baby led weaning that I thought I would start a series. I am in NO way a professional - and to be completely honest, I didn't even really follow all of the "rules" but in hopes to be some help to my sweet mama friends who are just starting out on their BLW journeys - I decided to start a three-part series on babyled weaning. We have almost reached the 1 year mark to when we started babyled weaning and I have learned so much along the way and enjoyed every bit of it (except...maybe, the mess. eek!) I am so happy that we decided this route for our family, but BLW is in no way superior to any other route -- in my humble opinion.

I had written a quick post about our BLW experience sometime last year, but thought I'd do a more informative post to hopefully help answer some of the FAQ's.

This blog series will include three parts:

• Getting started and "must-haves"
• A quick overview of BLW
•  First foods + BLW ideas

I say "must-have"s cautiously because I don't think there is anything that you HAVE to possess before starting. But for the sake of ease, we'll just stick with that.  In all the reading material that I've gone through before starting out - the recommended age to start BLW is no younger than 6 months. They also recommend that the baby be able to sit up unassisted (aka no slouching in a high chair). We started Asher in a bumbo for the first few weeks of babyled weaning and it was fine for us. The recommendation is also that you do not start with purees in any sense as it can cause confusion for the baby and delay their ability to learn how to work out different textures of food. Again, we didn't strictly follow these rules (we started solids at 5 months and we did purees for a few weeks) but these are the recommendations.

educate 

The following books are the main go-to's on babyled weaning:
(affiliated links)


Personally, the only one I read was the BLW Cookbook which has a few chapters in the beginning of the book that pretty much summarize the 1st book in a concise and informative way. I just borrowed it from my local library and it was so helpful!

There are also a ton of blogs that cover babyled weaning but I found it helpful just to peruse through different websites for tips and ideas, general overviews and I watched a lot of youtube videos. It was really encouraging to watch other people's progress videos but it is also important to watch a few videos on choking vs. gagging to educate yourself on how to tell the difference.

must-haves (or..."nice-to-haves")

1. Waterproof Silicone Bibs - we loved this Happy Parent brand because it was so easy to clean, dishwasher safe, and very soft and easy to put on. when self-feeding, the baby will drop A LOT of food (like enough for a second meal) so this was a lifesaver for us!
2. Utensils - we incorporated utensils pretty early on (around 8 months) though he ate primarily with his hands. however, I found that offering him the utensils early and modeling for him how to use it helped him to catch on pretty quickly. toddler-sized ones are good to start with as they are easy to hold and manage for their small hands!
3. Ceramic Scissors - definitely a luxury but we love our ceramic scissors. biggest plus is that it's easy to clean and no rust! but these travel sized ones are nice to keep in your diaper bag to cut up any foods that need cutting when you're on the go!
4. High Chair or Booster - this is an obvious one but it's good to have a good high chair. preferably one that will allow them to join you at the table. we have come to looooove our boosters (especially for when you're out and about but we also bought one to use at home). the ikea high chair has been my fave so far -- super cheap ($20 at IKEA) and really easy to clean (we usually toss in a hot shower for a few mins when it gets really dirty!)
5. Body Bib - if you are really scared of the mess and want to cover up completely, this is helpful to have though not super important. I usually fed asher naked with a diaper and bib and just tossed him in the bath afterwards. the mess is the hardest part of BLW but they get better and better over time!
6. Table Mats (Reusable or Disposable) - helpful to have when you're eating out. silicone ones are easy to pack and wipe down after use but most moms are fans of the disposable ones. I personally just always gave asher food on a plate and tried to teach him to not knock it over. definitely doesnt work for everyone/all babies - but if you'd prefer to just toss food directly onto the table, these will be nice to have!
7. Sippy or Straw Cup - when we started solids, we offered a little bit of water in a straw cup. Asher never took the bottle and had trouble with the sippy cup and learned how to use a straw pretty quickly! these munchkin ones with a weighted straw were our favorite!
8. Silicone Mats - this was nice for us to use at home. the silicone mats are very easy to clean, and for the most part stay on the table. we loved our EZPZ ones, though there are other cheaper options -- or you can always just do a plate or straight on the high chair table. I liked using these because it challenged me to offer him different kinds of things with each meal, instead of just one thing. It pushed me to offer him variety and allowed him to have different tastes and textures to experience. (FYI if you get an ikea high chair, you will need a mini EZPZ as the regular sizes won't fit.)

Hope that we helpful! Will try to get all 3 posts in within the week.
Happy eating!
xoxo

Our Father's grace to us as parents

from "Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles that can Radically Change Your Family" by Paul David Tripp

If you blame your children for your bad attitudes, actions and words -- not only will you embitter them, but in blaming them, you will fail to reach out for the help that is yours in the rescuing, forgiving and transforming grace of Jesus. And because you shift the blame, you will fail to grow as a parent and you will repeat the same patterns over and over again. When you are willing to confess that YOU are the biggest problem in your parenting, you are on the road to very good things in you and in your work with your kids. God's grace grows and changes you as a parent...Remember the gospel; although the power of sin has been broken in the beautiful justifying mercies of Jesus Christ, the presence of sin still remains with us. So God's present zeal is to progressively deliver us from the remaining hold that sin has on us. This means that he will use the pressures, opportunities, hassles, burdens, griefs, temptations and joys to grow and change us. Think of how beautiful this is: In every moment as you are parenting your children, the heavenly Father is parenting you. 

Such needed reminders.

May I have the eyes to see that every frustrating day, inconvenient moment, tantrum, emotional breakdown is an instrument in my Father's hand to grow and sanctify me into greater Christlikeness. How sweet it is to be able to cling to His grace daily to do the impossibly hard task of raising children!

<3