so 20 might be my magic number! *fingers crossed*
i have not been sick all week!

instead, since tuesday morning, i have been having cravings!  DONUTS!
not just any donut, chocolate sprinkled donuts. my favorite.

literally i had a dream that my best friend had them delivered to me through a pizza guy and i ended up getting into an argument with the delivery man because i didn't tip him enough.
when i woke up, there were no donuts, and i was truly sad.





i know i know. it's not a big deal... just go out and get some yourself!
but there's just something about getting out of bed, (going pee pee), and walking straight to the kitchen in your pj's without even brushing your teeth to find donuts waiting for you on the counter top.

blee gets up early every morning to walk the dog and to have a little relaxation time before he heads to work. so naturally every morning this week, i gave him "subtle" hints about getting his pregnant wife donuts.

for example, i tried things like:
* mumbling "dooooonnnnnaaaaaassss" in my sleep when he gets outta bed.
* texting him "r u downstairs?" from the bedroom upstairs to see if he had gone out to get my donuts.
* telling him the next day that it's really his unborn son that wants the donuts and not me...
* texting him emoji donuts all day while he's at work in hopes that he will get them the following morning...

yeah i'm not annoying at all.

anyhow, nothing worked, and i did not get my chocolate sprinkled donut.



instead i walked out to the kitchen this morning to see that the rice krispie treats i made the previous day had gone under a little transformation...

i hate you, blee. this is not the same thing.
you have no idea what these pregnancy cravings are like.
seriously i hate you. but i hate you more cuz i chuckled.
UGH! DOOOO  NAAAAATTTT where ij my dooo naaaatttt...  :(

pregnancy brain is REAL!


it was funny when my BIL told us he found a bottle of tabasco in the microwave when SIL was expecting, and it was kind of amusing when i put toothpaste all over my toothbrush cap and not the actual brush...

but then this past wednesday, i left the gas stove on low and forgot about it.

poor hubs kept saying something smelled like rotten eggs on thursday night and i was so annoyed because i had already done the dishes and cleaned the fridge out.

fast forward to friday, i bounced to colorado for a weekend with my girlfriends,

and on sunday he found the gas stove was on.

OOPS...

thankfully we didn't spend a lot of time near the kitchen during those days, but still!

he aired out the place, cleaned like crazy, and took the day off yesterday because of a massive headache. as punishment, i had to be on FULL-time dogbaby duty AND we had to get pizza for lunch. (not a fan)
not to mention he told his co-workers what i did ("my wife left the gas stove on and left on a plane for colorado") so they are pretty much convinced i tried to kill him.

blee insists i was trying to collect on life insurance so that i could buy a nice house for noma and i... but everybody knows that is NOT TRUE! i left ASH at home, too... and i would NEVER kill ash. :)


aside from that, i had such a lovely weekend with my girlfriends. it was SO EXHAUSTING because i have been suffering from major insomnia (add that to the list of pregnancy symptoms i am dealing with), but we were able to "sprinkle" our bff with love for her baby boy, spend lots of time with her daughter, experience the coloradan outdoors, and just spend some time as a group together for the last time in a while. :(

hey boy! can't wait to meet you!

who knew j was so good with kids?
guess she will be babysitting noma tons! :)

one of us was cranky and it wasn't the kid...

missing my bff already! 

for some strange reason, both blee and i always imagined our first child to be a girl.
we fought incessantly for years over our future daughter's name, even while we were just dating.
he was so insistent that her name would be ELLE. ELLE LEE. so that he could call her ellie, she would only need to learn two letters, and because in cursive it's just 7 loop-de-loops.

excitedly, i went into my 12 week appt, prepared to tell my doc to write baby's sex on a piece of paper, so that i could give it to my baker, and throw a little party that night to celebrate our little girl.
so you can imagine my shock when the french ultrasound specialist rubbed over my belly and said "oo and i see a little something right here."
she marked a little arrow over his crown jewels and printed out a copy for me to take home.

i walked back to the waiting room in disbelief. i don't really know why i was in denial because just a week before that, i had a dream about baby boy blue moccasins (which i am not a fan of, by the way)... but anyhow i snapped a quick pic and texted it to my husband (who never comes with me to my ultrasounds-BLAST!!). let's just say, excitement was not his reaction.

"how is this possible? my dad has four sisters and no brothers. my grandpa was an only son! it's not in our family history to have boys!"

to be honest, i sulked a little too. just because i have nieces galore and they are just so sweet and lovable. boys are so wild... they throw tantrums at target for another toy car even though they have 300 at home... their clothes are not as cute... lol

but on that same day, my best friend went into her ultrasound expecting a daughter and found out she was having a boy, too! ha! she was sad but when we realized we would both be having boys together, (shout out to j. excited abt your boy, too. don't get bbij lol) our disappointment quickly turned into excitement!

so long story short, i made blee apologize to my belly the next day, and now we are very very excited to meet our son. not to mention i am less paranoid about baby being born super dark and hairy, because better a hairy son than a hairy daughter. :)


i write this entry today, because my first purchase ever for noma came in the mail and i wanted to show it off!

with big sis. très cute, right? :)

"can someone please tell her how good looking i am?!" -blee

not many people have photographic evidence of the day they met their spouse.

i do!

look how fresh faced hubs looks!













lucky for me, my girlfriends were wildly entertained at how aggressive and persistent he was that night and took this picture.
it was taken probably with the intention of looking back and laughing at that weird guy who would NOT leave me alone,
but i'm the dweeb who fell for the persistent baby faced creep
(he totally has that look 'i got dis')
and 5 years later this photo is actually one i treasure very very much! :)

how to dress the bump.

there are so many fashion tips online on how to look cute with your new bump.
yet here i am, trying my best to dress appropriately, just so that i don't alarm the general public.
even mom has requested that i don't wear shorts this summer.
i am not a very cute preggo and it is definitely getting harder with the weather starting to warm up.


originally i was going to start taking belly bump pics or selfies when i started to show,
but i quickly scratched that idea when i found out we were having a boy, because

a. is he really gonna ask me twenty years down the line to see the pictures???
and
b. like i said, i am not a cute preggo. and there are some major self image issues going on with this uncontrollable and unceasing acne (that everyone comments on but my husband insists is totally unnoticeable. he has sense sometimes!)

still, if this is going to be the only time i am pregnant (going back and forth on this one), i might as well have some pictures to remember it by.

my first and kinda overdue bump pic entitled "fatty mc fat at 16wks and 5 days. half baby half poop."

i can easily look like this after a big meal or just from being backed up a week (which i am. GUH ROSS), but it's kind of nice to have an actual excuse for looking pregnant. so thank you, noma. finding that you come in handy sometimes. :)

PRAGNAN

blogging today because JY told me i should. she said i write "interesting". ha! what the heck does that even mean? later she retracted and said "i meant you write WELL". that totally reflects our relationship because she meant to say something nice but couldn't really, because we never really compliment each other. because we are korean and koreans don't do that unless they're fake.

anyhow,
i am not a good writer but i do enjoy it. and i have indeed thought to blog time and time again, but didn't want to be one of those people who just stop one day. in case you all get so addicted. :) but oh well. i'll try to keep it going for as long as i can!

16.


today i am 16 weeks pragnan.
my friend jen-e told me 16 is the magical number when i will start to feel good.
jen-e, you liar! jk.


i have maybe about 15 friends and family members around me that are expecting in the months of september, october, november, and december. there is a definite baby boom going on. everyone has been busy. of those 15, i think twelve of them are boys. including the one growing inside of me.

about the one growing inside of me.
we have been waiting for this one for quite some time. i don't like to tell that to people because it is kind of misleading. it makes it seem like we were timing things every single cycle, feeling tormented and disappointed every month, and worried that we would never have children. it wasn't exactly like that. but somehow i think we just imagined that this baby would sneak up on us and surprise us out of nowhere, out of some random hot night of romance. that definitely did not happen. the baby nor the night. ha. so in some way, two and a half years into marriage, we were waiting and we were eager for our new addition.

regardless, i was still so incredibly shocked and caught by surprise when our "duty" actually "worked" and the test checked positive. i don't know if it makes any sense, but i think it was the first time in my life i truly felt like a functioning woman. (hope that is not offensive to anyone)
i took the test at about 4 weeks while blee went out to frisbee with dogbaby, and the double lines were instant and DARK. up until that moment, i imagined that when the time actually came, i would keep it a secret until my first ultrasound, and surprise him in some cute way. but come on. does he really deserve something that sentimental and thoughtful? homie proposed to me in the car! so i texted him 0.5 seconds after i found out and basically he received the best news of his life mid-throw, during frisbee time with his dog. his response, i think: "cool.".

because my cycles are super duper long, (like 40+ days), i always figured i would be one of those girls who found out she was knocked up at like 10 weeks and first trimester would have ZOOMED past me without me even knowing. but like i said, i found out at 4 weeks and had i not found out then, i would have known by the very next week anyway, because my body instantly formed an intimate bond with every single toilet in our home. full blown nausea and vomit sessions. not to mention at the time i was working on an intense translation project for a grad student writing her thesis. this was all happening at the end of april. so close to mother's day. everything seemed so perfect because mother's day was a week after my first ultrasound, and what better gift for my mama than the gift of a grandchild?! yeah right. i couldn't handle it and called my mom at 6 weeks and forced her to drive 30 miles to come over and take care of my dog because i was so sick and stressed out with work. she came over begrudgingly and looked at me disapprovingly as there were dishes piled up in the sink and the place was an absolute mess. because i figured she would get mad if i asked her to come again the following day, i looked over at her from my desk and mumbled "the moment you have been waiting for has finally come...". she looked at me confused at first but because she is noonchi level one hundred, she caught on right away, and because she is not the type to hug me and kiss me and tell me she loves me so much, she walked over and patted me on the back repeatedly and said "good job, good job! ash, grandma take you on a walk! let's go. we not bother mom!" mission accomplished. mom came over twice every week for the next 6+ weeks to take care of me. :D #onlychildsyndrome

...

i was going to go into detail about my first trimester, but i just decided it's really not that interesting. just know that it kicked me in the ass and i'm not much better now. blee felt so bad in the beginning about all the sickness and throwing up that he would come home with bags of chips and tubs of ice cream... but eventually he got so used to it that it doesn't even phase him anymore. last week while i was having epic throw-up time, i heard him whistling and telling himself "74 degrees! it's shorts weather!!!". so happy for you bro.

the shit my husband says.

he really is lucky that
1.i'm pretty nice deep down somewhere and
2. i am secretly still kind of fond of him.

i will digress on my husband later, on a different day. i want to keep all my readers on their toes, so they will come back for more! hasta pasta!