Literally don’t even know if I’m writing or posting this correctly because it has legit been 6 years since I have logged in. Thank goodness for those Apple passwords and the iPassword app for remembering how to log me in to my hosting site because I wouldn’t have been able to figure out how to even log in to my hosting email… (I still don’t).

So it’s been almost 6.5 years since I’ve last posted here. What brought this on? Well, last year, around April 2021, my public health bestie Darren pointed out to me that the blog wasn’t loading. He’d been referencing the teething posts and a couple others, since he’d been seeking out answers for baby Hayden.. maybe the introducing solid foods infant feeding posts (?) and he realized that one day the page was drawing a blank. I’d assumed it was a fluke. Thankfully I’d saved that Lactation Cookie post recipe because that one was golden! Soooo fast forward 15 months of inaction on my part for checking on here because… well, life… and I find that it was a glitch in some plugin that I enabled. I don’t even know what the plugins do that I chose back in 2015 when this whole thing started, to be honest. And as tech savvy as Jeff is, I really didn’t even seek out his help because — again, life.

Here I am. Most of you who read this know me IRL (Preeeeetty sure that wasn’t a “term” back when I left the blog) know what’s been going on in our lives for the most part, because I’m an over-sharer on facebook, so let’s summarize in the most concise way possible. < also, those of you who know me IRL also know I am awful when it comes to being concise> And no joke, I don’t even know how to do a bulleted list, this is how blog-illiterate I am:

• We’ve moved. Three times. (From Torrance in 2016, bought a townhome in Redondo walking distance to Hermosa Beach and RB Pier, rented a townhome in Laguna Niguel (job relo for Jeff) and rented out the RB townhome to some 20-somethings that made me never want to ever be a landlord ever again, sold our Redondo townhome, then we bought a beautiful home in Mission Viejo)
• We had Jordy, our second kiddo… four years ago. He was diagnosed as autistic in November of 2020 and he’s in SpEd Transitional Kindergarten for Fall 2022. He’s cuddly, sweet, talkative, and obsessed with Mario Kart. We are working with him in every way possible to make sure he has all the supports in place, to set him up for success developmentally and emotionally. Yes, we’ve checked: no gluten issues.
• I became a nurse case manager close to when Jia turned 2, then was promoted to be a supervisor for case management when I came back from maternity leave in 2018 in charge of 12-14 nurses, then left after 1 year into the pandemic (I was a disappointing picture of what I envisioned I’d be as a parent, laptop in front of me during all daylight hours and many evening hours). After losing my identity and not enjoying admitting that I was a “nurse when I used to work, but currently not working,” I switched gears and dived into cosmetic nursing about a year ago. What’s that mean? Lasers, botox, fillers, that kind of stuff. It’s fun. I keep going back and forth between wanting to “make it” in cosmetics and just going along for the ride of being part of this continually explosive industry. Not decided yet, but there’s still a lot to learn.
• Jia is going into 3rd grade. She reads at a 5th grade level, and math is at-grade level. She wants to be a chemist. One that doesn’t have to dissect animals (we’ve talked about pre-requisites and how, yeah, she’s going to have to do that). But she also wants to moonlight a gymnastics teacher who rides horses. She’s currently road-tripping cross-country with my parents after a couple weeks in Virginia with Jeff’s parents. They have most recently stopped at the Grand Canyon today for the next 2 nights.
• Jeff works in identity authentication… so like, the software systems in place that verify your identity when you log into things online. That’s what I think, at least. He used to be in mortgage data when he had that job in Santa Monica, for that company that had us relocate to the OC.

This Fall, the kids will both start at a new school, together. Not the neighborhood school (though I’ve heard it’s excellent and our lovely neighbors and the 16 other kids in the ‘hood would be there), because Jordy’s SpEd TK is elsewhere. So, the two will be the new kids this Fall. Still a school with a great reputation. He’s not in the SAC group (Structured Autism Class), he’s in a tier of supported kids who are more independent but still need that smaller teacher: student class ratio.

How Are We Dealing with COVID?

As best we can, simultaneously living life as much as we can while being precautious. What’s that term? I dunno.

Well, Disneyland came out with their Magic Key passes August 2021, that’s what really got us out into the world in 2021. At the time of my last blog post, we had taken Jia for her first trip to Disneyland to meet the mouse at his house, for her 2nd bday. Since then, our Disney obsession really amplified and we’d become and maintained our AP statuses (Annual Passholders) yearly since Christmas 2016. We’d clocked in at Disneyland/California Adventure probably about 30 or so times.

When COVID shut the world down, our passes were on hiatus, and then a year later, they came out with a newly revised pass system, with reservations required (for all patrons, not just the pass holders). Before then, we’d been going to parks, eating outdoors sometimes, but mostly still keeping to ourselves.

Our first trip out to Disneyland since COVID was June 2021 prior to MK’s (Magic Keys) to celebrate the 9th birthday of Jia’s Pre-K bestie. While being really out of our comfort zones, Disneyland has been the main driving force for getting us comfortably uncomfortable with being around people. COVID really brought out the recluses in us, but we feel like we’ve adjusted back to our present definitions of “norm” for now.

We don’t dine indoors still (though we have a couple of times), we don’t regularly go to indoor places (like the Discovery Cube OC science museum Jia and I went on her birthday on a weekday, and as for malls, we try to avoid but we’ve gone a few times, and we still are adamant in wearing our masks any time we are indoors. Target included). Most of the attractions at Disneyland are outdoors with a few exceptions, but we still throw our masks on for rides like Peter Pan, It’s a Small World, Monsters Inc., etc.

We’ve flown to Hawaii to stay at Disney’s resort, Aulani, for the kids’ Spring Break and Jeff’s mom’s milestone birthday back in April. That was definitely out of our comfort zone, because I don’t really think we put on our masks at all while we were in the hotel. The resort was a very airy indoor/outdoor situation, but honestly it was weird but hey– we were OK! It was a phenomenal trip, one for the books. The kids had a blast and Aulani is on the top of our list to visit again one of these days. Jordy hates airplanes though, the pressure in his ears has kinda scarred him for a while.

Did We Ever Get COVID?

Jeff got the Omicron variant of COVID back in January of 2022, and the rest of us have avoided it so far (knock on wood). We were aggressive when he started becoming symptomatic, putting him in isolation until he was 5 days post-positive test, and KN95 masked around the house until day 10.

We were most worried about Jeff, being that he is a Type I diabetic. But now we are mostly only on Jordy-Guard for COVID, because with all of the supportive services and therapies he receives, he regresses without those supports.

A + COVID for Jordy means he’d be unable to receive his 12 hours a week of his various therapies plus Special Ed. Plus, while he is really verbal, he’s still working on being able to tell us how he’s feeling, emotionally and physically. If you have a kid with special needs, you realize how critical those services are to keeping them grounded. And what keeps that kiddo grounded, really keeps the family grounded. Jordy is quite the mask-wearing role model, I am proud to say. We worked on it here and there when he was in his late 2’s and early 3’s, but since he had to wear a mask in order to attend our school district’s SpEd Pre-K, he learned real fast that to play with friends in school that was what he had to do. So now this kid wears his mask no problem just about anywhere.

That’s it for today. Here come some pics that are already on the computer:

OK so the goal for the next post is to use some relevant photos. Because these pics are O-L-D. Jordy starting his last year in Pre-K and Jia starting 2nd grade. And because I am seriously lacking pictures on this low-disc space MacBook Air, I evidently had my headshot on there so I’m throwing that in here, too.

Til the next post! Hopefully sooner than 6 years.