31 weeks: dads rock

since sunday was fathers' day, i thought it'd be a good topic for this week's post. esp. bc i'm thinking a lot more about what it means to be a parent (mother or father) with lana coming soon.

my dad is in china all by his lonesome right now - my mom had visa issues so she had to come back in late april. and naturally, once she's here, she doesn't really want to go back. she hired my dad a housekeeper to clean, do the dishes, do the laundry, etc., put some easy-to-heat meals in the freezer, and basically said, peace!  i can't imagine being by myself in a foreign country (and not for vacation). i think sometimes he pretends to like it more than he actually does, just so we don't worry about him. but i think it helps that his employees have become his pseudo-family over there. he seems to really like them and vice versa. he talks about them fondly. for his birthday, they chipped in to buy him a really nice pen and he seemed really touched by it. in true asian style, they hang out after work together - they go out to eat, drink a lot (though my dad has the tolerance of a 10 year old girl so he said he pretends to drink by putting beer bottles up to his mouth and then not really drinking haha), play pool (apparently, he's the reigning champion) and sing karaoke. even though i'm sure it's fun sometimes, i know that he's really sacrificing a lot to provide for the family, in a country halfway across the world, where the culture can be completely bewildering, where he can barely speak the language and where, as my dad laments, "there are no peanut m&ms."

so i thought i'd just write a little about my dad. and instead of writing a long-winded tale, i like lists, so here's a list of random things about why my dad rocks:

-- when i was born, my dad was on an extended business trip in saudi arabia. apparently, my mom called him to say, "i just gave birth to our daughter," at which point he walked into his boss' office, quit, and flew home on the next flight.
-- as kids, my mom was the disciplinarian and my dad was the fun one, esp. since my mom was a stay-at-home mom. my dad hated the sound of us practicing violins since we sucked so he always let us (made us) stop practicing when he got home from work (much to my mom's chagrin and our delight).
-- until the day i graduated high school, every morning after i left for school my dad would make my bed, fold my pajamas, clean my desk and pick the lint off my carpet (on his hands and knees). i think i may get my analness from him.
-- my dad used to go on business trips a lot when we were kids. he always made sure to find time in his schedule to go shopping and buy us the coolest presents. i remember him arriving home and andy and me saying, "hi dad! where are our presents??"
-- my dad (and mom) never uttered a complaint when our hockey games were at 6am in eastern long island, which meant we'd have to wake up by 3:30am. i thought this was normal. but then i remember very clearly a conversation i had in 6th grade at lunch with my friends. it was one of those "what are you doing this wknd?" conversations and when i told them about the hockey game, they gasped and said, "wait, your parents are driving you at 3:30am to a hockey game on saturday morning?" i didn't know what the big deal was so i said, "yeah, so what?" and they responded with "uh, my parents would never EVER do that." hm, really. that's weird.
-- on the rare occasion my dad would go food shopping with us, he would let us buy whatever we wanted (sugary cereals, chocolate, candy, etc.). again, to my mom's chagrin and our delight. i get my sweet tooth from him, definitely. i should send him some peanut m&ms.
-- one thing i really appreciate about both my parents is that they aren't what many would call "typical" asian parents, in that they were always super affectionate with us and with each other. i don't think the lack of affection of other parents means they love their family any less, but i think it's important to show it and my parents really did that (even though when we were kids and saw my parents kiss, we'd go "EWWW GROSS STOP IT!!!").

and now that sh is gonna be a dad, i know he'll be awesome, just like my dad is. i'm really excited to see him with lana. he's already whipped now (and she's not even out yet) so i can only imagine what he'll be like once he sees her and gets to hold her and interact with her. i know it's going to be the hardest thing we've ever done, but it's also mind-boggling how awesome a gift from God it is to be able to have kids of our own to love, raise, drive us crazy, etc. let's just hope we don't screw it up too bad. maybe once you do it for a while it becomes natural, and you wouldn't even think twice about doing drastic things for your family, things like going to live in china.

in baby news, there's not much to say besides...i am very uncomfortable and i want her to come out. oh and our crib came today! it's so cute, i love it. also, for better or for worse, i have gone into diy mode full-force. we will see what the outcome is. o_O

bump!