Family
Logan is almost 4.5 and just full of energy. He is starting junior kindergarten soon. He is a little socialite in that he’s constantly having playdates or asking me to set up playdates for him. He somehow knows everyone’s siblings names and half their parents names and ages as well. He cares deeply about fairness and he loves to share juice boxes and snacks with his friends. He had a lego birthday party in March and had 33 friends show up! He prefers to only wear his Pokemon shirts, but still wears dinos and ice cream and rainbows as well. He loves to wear matching clothes with Rory and have a “photo shoot.” We put him in singing lessons during summer camp on a whim, and wow, he has really loved them. He has gone from being too shy to sing at school or at home to belting out the lyrics of Taylor Swift songs — his favorites being Anti-Hero and You Need To Calm Down. He listens to everything the adults say and he asks questions about what he doesn’t understand. He’s sassy in trying to find loopholes or logical inconsistencies in everything, but he’s also very sweet and caring and cognizant of the feelings of everyone around him. This age has been extremely fun in that he’s constantly on the go and eager to understand his surroundings.
Rory turned one year old in June! She had a kitty cat themed party, and of course she fell asleep for her nap 10 minutes before her party started. I stopped pumping in June, and she’s been drinking the last of the frozen breast milk just this week. This girl loves eating so much that her daycare teachers have said that they’ve never seen someone eat so much cheese in their life. She wakes us up every morning between 6:30 and 7, and when she sees you, she starts bouncing up and down and smiling, and then she cuddles for a good 5-10 seconds after you pick her up. Other than that, she’s not a big cuddler as she prefers to be on the move and playing with her big brother’s toys. She has a few words – mama, dada, bwa bwa (for brother), and two new ones – bread and ball. She is super chill and goes with the flow – we don’t really have a set eating time or nap time for her on the weekends, and she really just adapts to it and just lets you know when she’s hungry. She has started to really love books and will half crawl with a book in one hand. She is a spicy sweetheart.
Mark is working at OpsLevel and he seems to like it and not be super stressed out, which is all I ask for! We moved his office to the main floor and he bikes a lot to coffee shops to work. He’s still doing a quarterly Magic the Gathering tournament at our house. He and Logan love to play video games together or build Legos together.
Work
Still working at Stitch Fix with a bunch of my friends so I still like it. I took my last 6 weeks of maternity leave for the end of February and March, and then came back to lead a huge project. It was a little hectic in the beginning but we wrapped up in June and it went super well — very proud that we scoped out the project to have a sustainable pace and the final launch seemed “boring” in that we weren’t scrambling to fix anything major! I also got promoted in March from a lead 2 engineer to a principal engineer, and I am working on broadening my impact instead of just churning out tons of code. I’m happy where I am right now and hope that things continue to stay stable.
Reading
GoodReads tells me that I’ve read 45 books so far this year. This doesn’t count the books I read on Kindle Unlimited that aren’t on GoodReads. My favorite of the year so far has been Fourth Wing. Most of my reading has been on vacation (like reading 5 books on a solo weekend hotel stay) but I’ve been trying to incorporate reading more into my daily routine.
Watching
I’ve started watching all the reality tv shows that my friends watch — right now working on the current season of Love Island. Mark and I are watching Ted Lasso season 2 (we saw season 1 in a day and a half) as well as Never Have I Ever which I deeply love. We’ve mostly kept up on all the Avengers movies/shows and most of the Star Wars shows, too. Ever since our favorite movie theater to rent out a whole theater for a private movie has closed, we’ve been back to seeing movies whenever we can sneak them in. Last movie was Barbie which we dressed in pink to commemorate the experience. We took Logan to see his second movie (but first movie all the way through) in Super Mario Bros. and he definitely had a love hate relationship with it, but excited to keep trying to get him at the movies! We are trying to watch more things in the background and not make a big deal of it since Logan gets nervous about any tension in shows.
Creativity
I think I channel a lot of my creativity into party planning — both of the kids had super fun themed birthday parties! We’re planning our Halloween party to be Pokemon themed, and I’m super excited for that! We’re also hosting a wedding at our house in September so I’ve been dreaming up some ideas for that, too. Otherwise, I feel like I haven’t really been creating things. I got on a friendship bracelet kick for the Taylor Swift concert, and I’ve been purchasing a lot of embroidery hoops from a variety of artists in hopes of decorating my office downstairs soon.
Travel
I’ve been on two girl’s trips so far this year – Cancun in February and then the Taylor Swift concert in July in Kansas City. Each trip has been extra lovely in that all of my friends had shared the responsibility and the planning burden and everyone brought something different to the table. It was so refreshing to just be able to experience a trip and not have to be responsible for everyone’s happiness and feelings. The Taylor Swift concert was unreal — I knew it would be fun, but we also had beautiful weather and dead center tickets. Mark and I will be going to see her again in London next year! Other than the girl’s trips, Mark and I have had a few trips ourselves with the grandparents taking care of the kids – we went to Washington DC for a week and we went to a weekend getaway with friends at the Gamer’s Ranch. Mark gifted me with a solo weekend away at a hotel for Mother’s Day, and I think we’ll be making this a tradition as it was so relaxing and recharging. As a family, we went to Cancun for spring break and Chicago twice to see family (once for Eid and once for a reunion on the Katerberg side of the family).
Upcoming
Logan and I are going on a cruise with a bunch of family later this week! After that, we’ll be finishing out the summer with a family trip to Branson with some friends. I have some solo travel plans this fall to go to Baltimore for a wedding and go to San Francisco for a work trip.
Random bits and pieces
I got a concierge care doctor after my previous doctor retired and I was struggling to find a new one that I connected with that didn’t keep pushing out my appointments. It’s been unexpectedly great even if my health has been awful – I somehow had two partially collapsed lungs in April, and have had strep throat at least 4 times as well as bronchitis at least 4 times now this calendar year. The concierge care doctor has been able to see me same day and help me figure out some sustainable plans to work on my health holistically. Crossed fingers that it continues to be good.
I don’t know if it’s having two kids or just being tired or what, but I’ve stopped deeply caring as much about the wrong people. For example, some stranger was rude to me, and I didn’t immediately jump to feeling insecure and like I should change something about myself. It’s probably part of getting older, but I’m glad that I can finally just let it go. I’m still in therapy, and I’ve been doing some hard exposure work, but it’s going and I’m proud of myself for doing it even if it’s hard.
I’ve started trying to do more things without the kids — for example, I’ve been making an effort to try to have weekly date nights with Mark, and have a weekly or every other week dinner with friends. It’s been really nice to go out and be a real adult, and I’m trying to find balance so that I can do more things for myself like this.
Okay! It is officially bedtime in our household so I’m going to use that as an excuse to end this and click publish.