I really thought last month was going to uneventful. Turns out, there was so much that happened that I feel like it took me just spinning once to reach the end of the month. Let's see if I can concisely summarize all the things that happened in February.
Broken Mr. Coffee! Along Came the Ninja!
Our beloved Mr. Coffee coffee machine randomly broke one day. We contemplated getting another Mr. Coffee but after some crowdsourcing through social media, we decided to splurge and buy a Ninja! It has so many great features in one machine - I have been loving making lattes every morning! For those curious, we bought the Ninja Hot and Cold Brewed System (CP307). It happened to be on sale through Amazon when we started shopping so we actually got it at a cheaper price than normal.
Date Night
We went out on a date night and it was so so good. Our last date was back in October for my birthday, and we were slated to have a wedding anniversary date last December but the plan fell through at the last second due to our nanny being sick, and then soon after Zoe and I catching COVID. We did dinner at Potente - a modern American restaurant downtown - we were the 'old' people that made a reservation for 5pm which was great because no one was there.
Chinese New Year - The Year of Ox
Truth to be told, Z and I are not into traditions. I don't know if we are just lazy people or we don't have a lot of emotional attachments to things/special days in general, but we never celebrated Chinese New Year, that is until Zoe was born. Let's admit, we are rethinking how we are living ever since she was born - little kiddo has a powerful effect on her parents! Quite frankly, we weren't in the right mindset at all to celebrate last year because the global pandemic was looming upon us, and we still couldn't do much this year because we are still in the thick of the pandemic. But, we did make small efforts by buying red envelopes which I stuffed with heart stickers, and had Zoe passed around to her classmates at daycare. This year, it coincided with Valentine's Day so she ended up coming home with several Valentine's Day gift bags. Is this a thing?!?! I felt like my mom game standard was not high enough... In the evening, we dressed her up in Cheongsam and tried to take some photos; it quickly turned into a sprint running to chase down the toddler.
Zoe Gets Into a School Fight
Ok ok...fight might be a strong word to use here, but there was some altercation between her and a classmate over a push toy car. Zoe instigated by pulling her classmate out of the toy car which resulted in her classmate biting Zoe's arm and scratching her face (and Zoe scratched her back...sigh). The girls were ok, and Zoe had lots to say from her perspective (judging from how she was babbling at me during the car ride). Nevertheless, this resulted in daddy feeling bad and ended up getting her a toy car of her own. In a true Z's standard, he got her mini Merdeces Benz SLS - HA! Now, we are definitely not planning on starting a trend of 'get her something nice when she gets into a fight and unwilling to share' but it did kind of feel that way this time around. We'll be better parents next time...
The Freak Snow (More Like Fridge Cold) Storm (that TX was grossly unprepared for)
The one year that we live in Houston is the year that it decided to have a once-in-a-lifetime frigid winter storm that exposed the fragility of Texas power grid; I learned more about the history of power grids in the US than I ever thought possible. The winter storm resulted in thousands and thousands of residents have suffered from the power outage, lack of water, and then boiled water notice, all of which we also suffered from.
When we lost power and the indoor temperature started to drop drastically, my immediate concern was about Zoe's wellbeing. I might have had a minor panic settling in trying to figure out how to handle the situation; while of course, Z was calm because that's just how he is. My friend Jaimy, who lives just a couple of miles away from us still had power and water so she took us in without hesitation, which I am eternally grateful for. Our family of 5 (3 humans and 2 dogs) all showed up and spent the next couple of days with her and her husband. I felt a sense of peace and security while watching my kids (including the furry ones) sleep in a warm room. And this is why my heart was literally breaking every time I read about tragedies that struck families during this time.
Zoe Gets Stomach Virus (no pictures)
Because who needs pictures of vomit? One day on our way back home from daycare, Zoe caught me off guard and started vomiting. I could tell something was up from the moment she got on the car because she was unusually quiet and was refusing to eat her snack. Both of us felt utterly helpless because we were in the middle of a highway driving so I couldn't stop to clean her up. This was her first vomiting episode since she was born so I'm sure she was equally startled. The first night was rough as she wasn't able to keep any food or drink down so it was a sleepless night for both her and me. Thankfully, the whole thing was fast and furious; she recovered in a little over 24 hours.
College Friends
In pre-pandemic, it would have been a common occurrence to hang out with the Honekamps, our dear college friends. With my friend being a school teacher, we are careful about when the families should hang out, but we got lucky in February and hung out twice. The first of the two gatherings happened to fall on my friend's birthday so we ended up having a reason to celebrate (our visit was totally unplanned...I had texted her earlier to say that I was bored 😆). The second gathering was also rather unplanned - I had received a call saying that her husband bought 35 lbs of crawfish and that she was looking for people to eat with...who wouldn't say no to free food? It's a rarity for all three of us (aka The Trio back in college years) to live in the same city since graduating from college so we cherish these times whenever we can.
Trip to the Mall
We rarely ever go to the mall, but on the 28th, I felt like changing up our pandemic-activities a little bit so we took a trip to the Galleria. As suspected, the mall was disappointingly crowded, but we managed to find areas where there were very few people around. This gave a lot of running space for Zoe while helping her practice wearing a mask. Even though she is not yet 2 years old, we decided to introduce the mask earlier so that she has more time to get more comfortable with it. I was pleasantly surprised by how tolerant she was with the mask - she thought it was quite fun and wore it longer than I anticipated!
What I didn't expect was how much sensory overload I was experiencing at the mall - the crowds, bright lights, and heightened sound all created so much stress to the sensory experience that I had a really difficult night getting over it.
Lastly, my favorite picture of the month was taken on the morning of the 28th. Fun fact: Z picks the outfits for Zoe and braids her hair on weekends! I love this little tradition that he built with her - he is not home around much (and often misses her bedtime) due to work so it's truly wonderful to see him squeeze out as much quality time as he can get. I am my daddy's little girl, and this makes me bring out all those old memories.
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