Miles In Between

Today I turn thirty. I’m older, yes, but wiser. I was reminiscing about the day I turned 20 and cried for the loss of my teens. Yes, to cry for a loss of innocence is ok, but I think by now I know that life just gets better and better with time (at least it has so far). I meet this decade with great peace and calm anticipation. And a little bit of sleep deprivation.

In review: the last 10 years represent a third of my life, and from what I already mentioned, the best yet. I married the perfect man for me, and together we built up to a family of four. I got a passport and proceeded to completely fill the pages traveling the world, enough to require extra pages to be put in (a personal goal, more easily achieved if one has so many full page Chinese visas). I lived in 4 countries, five if you count Texas separately (many do ) I learned to speak Mandarin. I finished my degree and had a 5-year career that was accelerated to where I experienced enough to be OK leaving it to go on to other things. I have made wonderful friendships all over the world, creating what I hope to be lifelong bonds with great and interesting people. I achieved far beyond what I ever thought I was capable at with running, and injury free! I learned to bake, and enjoy cooking more than ever. It was a good 10 years.

Status check: From a time when I placed an undue amount of pressure on myself, creating illness through stress and unhappiness through worry and anxiety… to today, where I feel in harmony with my situation. I am happy. I feel almost guilty writing that (see, I’m not there yet, still need to work on that guilt …). I don’t dwell on the past and I don’t stress about the future. Each day is just that, another day. And of course there are moments of frustration, tears, worry and stress, but (in my advanced age) I have learned to deal so much better with those times. I am happy where I am now, and it’s part of the reason we’ve decided to stay put. Tim just signed an extension of his contract, so we are in Penang through at least early 2013.

Looking ahead: I don’t do a lot of looking ahead. I want to grow with my family, see who my baby girl is going to be, and enjoy the little kid years with her and Miles.   Be a mother, be a partner, be true to myself. I could never have imagined the path the last 10 years took, so I won’t try to imagine the next. I can only hope to come out of the next decade with a similar outlook, no matter what may come.

This ended up being a bit cheesier than I was hoping for, but I think at heart I am a sap and not built for clever wit. If you are reading this, I bet you are family, a friend or acquaintance, or maybe we’ve never met. In any case, thank you for being a part of my 30 years. Love, Laurel.

Each Thursday morning, a group of us mommas, usually about 4-8 of us with toddlers, get together at someone’s house or playground to meet up for a playgroup. There is always coffee and always cake. I used to call it the “Gurney Crawlers”, and then they started walking, and then slowly they started kindy, while some of us started growing new bumps.

Remember this?

A couple months later, and the playgroup has taken on a slightly different dynamic.

There’s still coffee. There’s still cake. We’ll call it the “Gurney Breastfeeders”. Here’s Hazel’s welcome, playgroup style (Thanks, Liza!):

Here’s Miles and Ada crawling around in the garden.  The game they are playing is “catch”.  Basically, Ada throws the ball to Miles and he goes and hides it in the foliage, then they crawl around searching for it.  Super fun, I’m sure.

Another fun game: hauling around coconuts:

A gorgeous Sunday morning at PG1.

We had a little help after Tim had to go back to work.  My sister Mariel (aka: Aunt May, May-may) came to visit for 10 days, and was super helpful.  She cooked, ran errands and held one of the kids while I held the other one.  Or while I went for a swim.  So nice.  She got lots of bonding time with Miles while Tim, Hazel and I went for a passport run to KL.  Here they are making pizza:

She also became the champion baby-soother.  Her trick? Side laying position while bouncing on the ball:

Looking forward to more time together in March!

Too sweet.  Just a picture today.

Lots of people have asked if Hazel resembles Miles as a baby.  What do you think?

5 minutes old:

I certainly look different…28 vs. 14 hours of labor. Here’s the Day 1 compare:

The true test…foot compare:

We kept the gender for both of our babies a surprise, but whenever anyone would ask if we know what we’re having I would always think and sometimes answer “probably an engineer”.  It’s strong on the Bolhouse line (both parents, all us sisters, the husband, the fiance, the boyfriend…) and with Tim carrying his recessive gene, it’s inevitable. The jury is still out on Hazel, but Miles has proven he is thoroughbred.  He believes everything can be fixed with tape: the ice maker, the stroller, a plant stem he was not supposed to pick.  Here he is, ready for action:

Since the arrival of our little Hazel, we’ve felt more complete, or at least been told we should feel so. One boy, one girl, there is a little less pressure to go through it all again. We built a perfect American nuclear family, minus 0.2 kids (would a dog count for that?). Malaysians tell us we now have a ‘couple’. My favorite is from the Chinese (and Chinese-Malaysians), who all comment we have now made yi ge hao zi. Translated, we made good.

The Chinese character for good, hao, has two components, one on the left and one on the right. The one on the left is nu, meaning female. That on the right is zi, meaning (male) child. Together, good.

We think it’s great.