Month: January 2025

These are the best days of my life

Published on by Sophia LeeLeave a comment

Woori has been going through a sleep regression the past three weeks or so, exacerbated by teething. Like clockwork, at about 12:30 am, she wakes up screaming. And from then on, she wakes up every hour or two hours.

In the past month, she also stopped napping in her bassinet. She doesn’t even last 5 minutes before screaming and flailing so hard she’s breathless and hyperventilating.

All that to say, I am a walking zombie. I wake up in the morning groggy, with that deep-in-the-brain ache because my brain has barely been able to shut off all night. My body and hormones are off, because I’m night-sweating again, waking in a soaked T-shirt. I’m almost falling asleep as I drive Tov to school. Often, I pass out half-dead with lurid dreams while holding Woori in the nursing chair. (Somehow, I still have energy to read novels late at night, but that’s the kind of nonsensical superpower parents have when we are liberated after putting the kids to bed.)

It’s been hard, but honestly I don’t really have the mental and physical energy to even think about how it’s hard. I just go on, putting one foot before the other, day by day, dragging my weary body through the mire of parenthood.

There have been moments of lucidity though. I remember one morning, as I heard Tov having a tantrum with David in his room, and Woori starting to fuss in bed with me (we co-sleep now— it just keeps everyone sane), and felt the bunched-up clammy sheets under me, and raked my hand through my damp, disgusting postpartum hair, probably pulling out 237 strands of hair that I don’t have to lose, all of a sudden, this thought came to me: “These are the best days of my life.”

It’s cathartic to complain about parenthood, especially those early childhood years, when everything is a struggle, from shoving a sweatshirt over a screaming, snotty toddler’s head, to driving stressed because the baby’s shrieking like a banshee in her car seat and there’s nothing you can do about it. Complaining about the hard moments of parenthood is viral content on social media— I enjoy them; I enjoy commiserating and sharing them with my fellow moms and dads. It brings much-needed comic relief to a period that feels so long and consuming.

But still. These will be the best moments in our life.

When I was young, I could not wait to grow up. I wanted to be independent, to earn my own money, choose what I want to eat, where I want to go, without asking my parents for permission.

Meanwhile, my childhood best friend dreaded growing up. “I want to stay a child forever,” she told me. She liked her cocoon of innocence and lack of responsibilities, liked the assurance that someone bigger and wiser is taking care of her.

“You’re stupid,” I told her, with all the eloquence of a 9-year-old. “Or crazy. Why would anyone ever want to stay a child?”

She gazed with longing into the past. I gazed with impatience into the future.

And I’ve lived like that since. I’ve always been impatient for what’s next, what’s new. When we immigrated to the United States, I eagerly kissed everything and everyone in Singapore goodbye. Next! In high school, my actions and thoughts were all set towards preparing myself for college. Next! Once in college, I couldn’t wait to graduate and be done with school forever, and kickstart my career. Next! Then once I got a job, I was never content in my career. I wanted to work in someplace more prestigious, and lived in constant frustration of feeling stuck in my job, watching with envy when my peers seemed to hop on to shinier opportunities. Next. Next. Next!

What’s next? What’s new? Is this it? To what end I was working towards, I did not know. What was the achievement that would finally satisfy me, to make me relax and say, “This is it,” what was the accomplishment that would allow me to start enjoying what I have, I do not know. I was just perpetually restless, rootless, reaching out and out.

And now. As a parent, as a mother of a 2.5-year-old and a 5-month-old, I seem to do both, looking both forward and backward. I look at old pictures of Tov and my heart aches. Sometimes he looks up at me a certain way and I lose my breath; I’m so shocked at how boyish, how non-toddler his expression is. My boy is growing up before my very eyes, and I am still caught off guard by how fast.

Even as I hold Woori, who blessedly still fits in my arms and stays where I put her, I am already mourning, looking into to the near future when she’s 2 like Tov and Tov is almost 5, and I feel nostalgic for the very period I’m currently in.

Parents have talked about the importance of “soaking in” every moment, but I feel like every moment, even as I’m living right in it, keeps slipping through my fingers like water. Rather than soaking, the moments seem to flow out like a stream, and all I have are pictures and reels on my iPhone as memories that are memories because they are already in the past.

Yet at the same time, I’m still planning my future, wondering what’s next. When are my kids going to be independent? When can I start having my time back, my body back? When can I restart my career? When I can have my mind and creativity back? When can I start writing again? And because motherhood makes you insane, I also wonder: When can we have a third baby?

Perhaps the present moments keep slipping me by because I keep looking back to the past and out into the future, but rarely stay still to enjoy the present. Honestly, I don’t know how. I haven’t practiced that enough to suddenly do it now.

Which brings me to that morning when I woke up feeling that heaviness of trying to swim upstream, facing the new day with exhaustion, and that seemingly random thought came to me— that these are the best days of my life. I was startled by how strongly this sentence entered my mind, so I took it as a conviction from the Lord, and I thought of Ecclesiastes: “Hevel, hevel, all under the sun is hevel.”

Working hard on a career is hevel, or meaningless, or vanity. Marriage is hevel. Raising kids is hevel. All in life is hevel, unpredictable and fleeting, impossible to grasp and control. So I was right: It is hard to “stay in the moment” because time keeps moving, tick tick ticking along even as we practice meditation to “be still.”

But there’s still joy found in the hevel, Ecclesiastes tells us: “Light is sweet, and it is pleasing for the eyes to see the sun. Indeed, if someone lives many years, let him rejoice in them all, and let him remember the days of darkness, since they will be many.”

I love how realistic and grounded Ecclesiastes is, at once exhorting us to enjoy what we have while also acknowledging that life feels futile and hard. Yes, we are all drawing one day closer to death every day. We all die, including powerful filthy-rich smart-alec jerks like Elon Musk and saints like Mother Teresa. Death is the ultimate equalizer; as terrible as it is, it is fair.

Accept the hevel, accept that time is passing us by, accept that a lot of things that mean so much to us will not mean much after we’re gone. Enjoy our remaining youth while we can. Work hard while we can. Enjoy our bread while we can, and enjoy the sun when it’s out.

And always remember: “Fear God and keep his commands, because this is all humanity. For God will bring every act to judgment, every hidden thing, whether good or evil.”

“Judgement” sounds so ominous, but not when the judge is God, who is perfect in every way. This perfect God sees it all. He sees me nursing Woori at 4 am. He sees me packing Tov’s lunch in the morning before my first cup of coffee. He sees me holding back my temper when Tov is having a tantrum. My kids will not remember all these little acts of service, and if I’m banking on my husband or society to acknowledge everything I do, I’ll become bitter and petty. But God does. He sees what I do, and He also sees right into my heart as I do these daily domestic duties.

As I slide into the early stage of middle age, as the rosiness of youth wilts, as I gain hard-lived experience and knowledge with every fine line and wrinkle, I want to remind myself that I’m living the best days of my life.

One day I’ll look back and miss these days when I can still carry Woori on one hip, when I can cuddle and smother Tov in kisses while he giggles, and hopefully, hopefully, by then I would have gained enough wisdom and contentment to be able to miss the past yet also wake up every morning declaring, “Today is the best days of my life.”

Tov is definitely jealous

Published on by Sophia LeeLeave a comment

I tried really hard to not let Tov feel like he’s lost a mother when Woori was born.

The first time he met Woori at the hospital, I made sure she was in the bassinet, not in my arms. I held him and cuddled him and gave him lots of attention. I still bake with him as much as he wants. When I’m nursing Woori and he’s around, I am pushing toy cars on the arms of the nursing chair with him, singing songs with him, reading him books. I leave Woori in the car when I drop him off and pick him up at school, so that he has my full attention and I’m not hip-hugging him goodbye or hello.

But things have changed. I don’t put him to bed as much anymore; David does that. I don’t greet him when he first wakes up; David does that. I don’t give him baths; David does that. I’m not the one pushing his wagon when we go on walks; David does that.

Having two young kids under 3 is kind of like being single parents in the same household, each assigned to one kid. Honestly, it’s helped assuage some of the resentment I’ve had towards David about unequal parental duties, but at the cost of losing undivided time with Tov. When I am taking care of Tov, it’s almost always with Woori sitting on my lap, or me shuttling from one kid’s urgent need to the other’s.

So as much as I’ve tried, Tov is sensing the loss. He’s overall a very affectionate, sweet big brother— he loves kissing and hugging Woori, even though half the time he’s either squishing or head-butting or chokeslamming her, all in the name of brotherly affection. For the first several months, he didn’t show signs of jealousy. He would forget about her, then obsess over her, then run off to his own thing again— all the normal classic toddler narcissism, in which he has little emotional and mental capacity to consider anyone else but himself. But never jealousy.

And then. It’s starting.

Woori is now five months, and around the mid-four month mark, Tov all of a sudden started hitting her— not unintentionally in the spirit of fun, but willfully, deliberately, spitefully. I can see the shift by the expression in his face. It’s not hee hee look what I’m doing! but I’ll show you! He’s not giggling but serious— his lips pursed, his eyes hard, his brows snapped close with intent.

And there’s no guile or sneakiness about it, either. He doesn’t do it behind our backs but when we are watching. As if to make a point.

One morning, I was trying to nurse Woori to sleep when I saw him stomping into the room, his palm up straight and hard like a paddle. He comes stomp stomp stomping with a purpose over to us, and while I’m watching, while I’m telling him to step away, raised that palm up and smacked Woori over the head. Not once, but again and again, smack smack smack! I fruitlessly told him to stop it, trying to lift Woori out of the way, until by the third smack I had to physically push him, and he fell back on his bottom.

“I told you to STOP!” I yelled at him, and he stared up at me in amazement. Then he lifted his chin up to the sky like a wolf and howled. Fat globes of tears ran down his cheeks as he sobbed with sorrow, and I felt both sad and tickled at his theatric, but also very real and sincerely felt, emotions.

By then Woori was also wailing, startled awake from having had her head slapped in the middle of a drowsy feed. I shushed her as fast as I can, then put her down and picked up Tov and comforted the other heartbroken kid. She quieted down quickly, but Tov needed a longer cuddle. He didn’t need words from me about not to hit his sister— he hears that all the time— he just needed a hug that gave him both my arms and both my eyes.

Oh, how he sobbed. Like he had lost his mother, though he doesn’t understand that, doesn’t understand how and why he feels this way, cannot articulate it to me or to himself. It is a tough age to suddenly become a big brother, to share your parents with someone smaller and needier than you are, even though you are still very small and needy yourself.

I, too, was a big sister, though now at 37, I can’t remember how I felt when my parents brought home a newborn baby brother. I must have had big feelings then too, confusing and terrible feelings, but none of those feelings have left a mark on me 35 years later, so I know Tov will be fine, but I also know that right now, all these changes is a freaking big deal to him.

So I try. I try not to get mad at him when he mistreats his sister. I try not to have big reactions, which I suspect is what he wants— attention, any kind of attention, even the bad ones. I teach him to shake Woori’s hand instead of punching her, to cycle her legs instead of kicking her, and he seems to enjoy that. Now whenever he hits her, I look at him and he amends his behavior by shaking her hand, looking up at me for approval.

Still, I know he’s jealous. When I give Woori anything, Tov snatches it away. I give her a rattler; he wants it. I give her a teething toy; he wants it. I give her a wooden bus; he drops everything and rushes over to grab it out of her hands. I give her a ladle, then a spoon, then a Tupperware lid; he snatches them one by one away until he’s amassed a hill of items that he doesn’t care for other than the fact that he doesn’t want his sister to have it.

Poor Woori. Right now she’s defenseless, and doesn’t know even to protest when her oppa rudely wrestles her toys away from her little fingers. But one day she’s gonna fight back. Like the time when Tov rolled over her and her hands closed over his thick tufts of hair and pulled hard, eliciting yelps of pain from her brother.

Did I tell Woori to stop it? No, no I didn’t. Because Tov kind of deserved it, and he needs to know his jealous bouts have consequences.

Tov, you gotta watch out. Woori’s not gonna take this lying down for much longer.

To have and to lose

Published on by Sophia LeeLeave a comment

I remember the first morning after our wedding, the first time I woke up as a wife. I don’t know why, but that few seconds of a single moment is like a neon painting in the gallery of my memories, impressionable and unforgettable.

I remember opening my eyes and turning right to see the profile of my husband— husband!— sleeping on his side, breathing softly, a slight crease on his neck where his shoulder almost touches the side of his face. This is my husband, I marveled.

And then just as quickly, I thought, He could die. And just like that, I could lose him. In becoming a wife, I’d suddenly also gained the very real possibility of becoming a widow.

Besides for my parents and brother, that was the first time I had something as precious, yet also as fragile, as life. A husband. Someone who belongs to me, yet is so out of my control, someone who brings me immense joy, yet also capable of bringing me immense sorrow, anguish, fear, anxiety.

I never thought of myself as a fearful, anxious person, until one day my parents got old, I married a man, birthed two children, and bought a new house. And then I realized: It’s not that I had no fear. It’s that I didn’t have enough to lose. And now I do.

As I write this on my iPhone, Woori sleeps in my arms, because she’s been refusing to nap in her bassinet. Tov is in school, kept indoors because of the terrible fires currently still raging in Los Angeles. David is gone to a work meeting. And outside, the sky is sludgy and smoldering, as ashes dot the air above this great, terrible city like snow flurries. The light that streams through our window is a soft, glowing orange-gold, lovely but eerie because it’s not normal.

LA is burning. The photos and videos streaming through my screen are like snapshots of an apocalyptic movie— houses and buildings razed into black skeletal frames, memories and keepsakes and well-worn furniture all disintegrated into white and black flakes.

When I first heard about the Pacific Palisades fire, the news barely made a dent in my attention, because there are always some kind of wildfires in Southern California during this drought season. But then the news got more frantic, more high-pitched. And then I got news that Altadena is burning as well, a small town-vibe city where one of my best friends live, and the news drilled from my mind to my heart.

This is real now. It is so real it’s surreal. I didn’t believe my friend would lose her home. I couldn’t believe it. I was willfully optimistic out of desperation. I felt heartsick, thinking of all the happy times we had shared in her humongous, well-maintained, well-lived backyard. Of all the BBQ parties and playdates and picnics on her lawn, underneath the prosperous orange trees. As of now, it seems my friend was able to save her house from burning down, but overnight, her entire neighborhood has exploded and crumbled into rubble, and the fire is still not contained. It’s insane. It’s like a nightmare from which we cannot wake.

All this is happening while David and I are building our new house. For the last two months, I’d been watching countless YouTube clips on how to design a kitchen, how to decorate the living room, etc. I’d been overwhelmed with the decisions I had to make: What paint colors to choose for the bedroom walls— rose bisque or allspice? Upholstered bed or metal bed frame? Brass or bronze tones for hardware? And now it’s laughable and embarrassing that those decisions seemed so important or intimidating, while thousands of people have lost their house, their investment, their belongings.

This tragedy, hit so close to home, is terrifying and sobering. It reminds me yet again that the more I have, the more I have to lose. And I can lose them in an instant, just as a neighbor’s truck took David’s mom away in an instant, and an ember took away more than 2,000 homes and businesses in an instant. Every day when I drop Tov off to school is a gamble, but every day I keep Tov at home is also a gamble. Every day, every moment is a gamble in life. Life is a roulette of gain and loss, pain and joy, success and failure, and we are all just helplessly watching as the wheel spins and spins, wondering on which pocket the ball will land.

This sounds incredibly, horribly depressing and fatalistic. Unless you have the gospel. Unless you still see a reason for hope.

On New Year’s Day, I sat at our local Starbucks and asked God what to pray for the new year. I do this every year. Last year, I prayed for community, and God answered and continues to answer that prayer. This year, 2025, I considered various prayers and kept coming back to the word “generosity.”

It seemed fitting, at a time when we are building a new house with the idea of opening it up to our slowly forming community. I also thought of “generosity” not just materially but in spirit, as God revealed to me in 2024 how petty, small-minded, and selfish I am in my thoughts and actions towards others, especially those whom I love the most, those who I’m most afraid to lose. I want to be generous in my thoughts towards people in my life, to see the best in them and delight in them, to not judge and compare and scorn. I want to be generous with my time and attention with others, to be quick to give my ear and shoulder to those who need it.

As I thought about what it meant to be generous, I listened to a podcast that pointed out that true generosity comes from a deep acknowledgment and understanding that everything that I have belongs to the Lord. That this is not “my” house but God’s. This is not “my” money but God’s. This is not “my” husband and “my” children but God’s. Everything that I have is a gift generously shared by God, and generosity is simply good stewardship of that. Generosity demands a radical change of mindset towards what I have in life. It’s not: Here I have this much, so I can give you that much of what I have. It’s: Everything that I have is the Lord’s. Nothing belongs to me.

Even as I write this, I am frightened of what this means. That maybe I didn’t know what I was really asking for when I pray about generosity, that God might ask me to open up my hands and let go of more than I am willing to share.

As I pray about this LA fire, currently already the most destructive in history, and I pray that the winds and fires will cease and houses and lives be spared, I also pray: The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Praise be His name. And though I don’t always feel this in my emotions, which tremble and quiver, I know it to be true. And there’s hope in that.