"You know you can just say Thank You, right?"

I feel that I have gotten to know some really cool people lately and they are such big inspirations to me. I wanted to just go and tell each of these people how much I admire them and how much I appreciate them being an inspiration to me and just how cool of a human being they are. However, this insecure me held me back. What if they find me weird for wanting to reach out and just say thank you?! Would it be just embarrassing if they totally ignore me because they’ve heard enough praises or because the recognition from someone not so important at all like me means nothing to them at their level? Would I scare them off because they would be afraid that I’m trying to get something from them by saying all these compliments? Would they feel that I am just flattery? This list can probably go on and on.

As part of my grand attempt to understand myself, I too have been thinking about why I think like this. Am I alone in this or is this more common than I think it is?

I think this has something to do with me not being able to accept complements well too. Maybe it’s because I was taught that there is always someone better so anything that potentially makes you prideful is bad. Maybe it’s this Chinese tradition of always showing that you are humble that makes people feel like they are doing something wrong if they acknowledge their own hard-work. Woah, I just realized that as I am writing, this might even be part of the whole idea of each individual is only paying his due diligence for the big goal of the nation—don’t ever take credit for individual efforts.

Anyways. I had to learn to accept compliments. I vividly remember when I first came to the US and people would just come to me at the bus stop on campus and compliment on my shoes or ear-rings and I would blush and freeze without words in reply. Whenever someone excitedly came to me to tell me how good I was at something—that food you cooked tastes so good or that doodle you did was so cute or really literally anything—my response was always: Nah, I’m ok and I could be better.

Then Jonny totally called me out—You know you can just say Thank You, right?

I didn’t know that! How dare I just smile and say Thank You?!

Well, now, I know.

While I was still struggling with whether I should just go tell these people I don’t know well how much they inspire me, I got a message from a friend of mine telling me that I am such an inspiration to her and I am such a cool human!

Well, I don’t think I ever had anyone telling me that I am cool. (That might not be totally true since I think Jonny has told me that I am cool before, once at least. ) I’ve always tried to be cool but always ended up feeling awkward and not fitting in with any of the cool kids. I have to say that hearing someone calling me a cool person made my day. It was not coming from anyone with authority but just from this good friend I care about. It actually meant more than me ever wining any awards. I guess I might actually be kinda cool in some weird ways.

It was not an easy adjustment to feel comfortable about compliments but these days, I do find myself willingly saying Thank You more when someone complimented me. Another good thing is that, I feel more comfortable giving out my compliments too, gradually, but I’m getting there. I now definitely feel that it is possible to have this genuine desire to just say a simple Thank You for being awesome without any other string attached. The single action of showing my appreciation makes me happier myself and that would be enough. At the same time, others can also share with me these simple genuine appreciations for what I have done so why not just happily accept them and feel proud?

Thank you for saying thank you to me. Thank you for letting me say Thank You to you!

Let's Fly A Kite | Arizona Documentary Photographer

I’m doing this summer photo challenge and the prompt of the week is Flying A Kite. Well, first off, I’ve never been good at flying kites ever. Two, we don’t get much breeze here in Arizona—we either get nothing or haboob dust storms. With that being said though, what challenge would it be without it being challenging right? So let’s fly a kite!

But we don’t have a kite. So…let’s make a kite first. How hard can it be to make a kite, right?

Well, the steps are simple and clear but when kids are involved in the making, things don’t usually go as planned. And, yes, I’m blaming the kids. Ok ok, the actual fact is that, I might be crafty but I definitely don’t know how to make a kite. I helped the kids to tie their frames together and I immediately realized that the cross is not symmetric. Oh well.

Of course, my boy wanted to get his hands on the project too. He picked up his scissors and went directly for the thread that’s forming the frame. I was so close to screaming NOOOOOO! Somehow I calmed myself down and asked him what he thinks he needs to do to fix it. He actually came up with the idea that we could just tape it back. We tried it out and it worked ok. I mean, probably still affected how a kite can fly but at least we don’t have a broken kite for the moment. Lesson learned, just roll with it because the kite might never fly anyways.

My girl’s favorite part was probably making the tail for the kite. She mede the bows and tied them onto the string. While I was attaching the tail to the kite, she realized that she could blow on the bows and they would spin. How fun! Until…

The string got all tangled up. My girl said that we could just cut it off and then make a new tail. I was trying to teach her a lesson about being patient and trying to fix things before getting a new one. I spent the entire nap time trying to untangle these 8 bows and I gave up at the end. I was like, forget that. Why did I spend so much time on a kite that probably would never even fly?! I told the kids, hey, look, our kites probably would never fly but we are gonna still give them a try. Also, if somehow our kite did get up into the air, the string might break and the kite might fly away. We can always make new kites right?

Look at me, I am doing such a great job lowering the expectation for my kids so they wouldn’t throw a tantrum later when we actually try to fly a kite.

Surprise surprise, our kites, never got to fly! Ha! We tried and tried. Most likely it was because the frame was too heavy and it was not symmetric enough. However, the kids still had fun running around holding the kites and just watch the tangled tails fly in the air. And eventually it turned into a chasing game and see who can escape from daddy.

The attempt to fly a kite definitely failed but my kids still had a lot of fun. My girl told me that we could try again next time when there is a dust storm so we get stronger winds. She also told grandma later that the kite we made together was her favorite kite. Thanks kiddos.

Even though the kite spent most of the time surfing on our lawn dragged by my kids, it has been quite a fun experience. At least now I know I am not that good at making kites and we can joke about it. And regardless, my kids love me for spending the time working with them to attempt to make and fly a kite. That’s what matters the most, isn’t it?

A Celebration in Pandemic | Arizona Documentary Family Photographer

Covid-19 has been around for a couple of months now in the US and July 4th is now here. Independence Day celebrations had always been a fun part for me and for the kids. We usually had family and friends over at our place for a party and then we will have fireworks at the end of the day. This year, with the pandemic things are definitely different. So what do we do? We don’t want to just cancel everything in life but we also cannot risk having a little too much fun for the short moment and then causing long-term damages to our healths and family relationship. It’s never an easy decision when dealing with unprecedented situations.

We decided to skip the family dinner together since most of people in our extended family do not feel comfortable dining together and mingle in a closed space and it is still too hot to have everyone eat in the backyard. We would get together for fireworks later at night while social distancing.

This is what it looks like having a firework show during a pandemic.

We set up the chairs for each small family with great social distancing in between. Everyone is wearing a mask to protect the high risk parents. And we lit up the fireworks and watched from a far.

I was trying to figure out how I feel about this whole celebration in pandemic thing. Honestly, it was a pretty unsettling eerie feeling. We were together but we couldn’t even see what the people from across the lawn are doing. Our kids and their cousin are definitely excited to see fireworks, but they couldn’t really share the joy from so far apart especially when they are also wearing protective headphones.

At one point, some neighbors set off these huge fireworks. Then everyone was just watching the big firework while ignoring our little firework.

It happened to be full moon too. In Chinese culture whenever we see a full moon we think about reunion of the family. In a sense, we were indeed together as a family, but honestly, I felt the most apart and disconnected than ever. Maybe it’s just me. I need to have either physical connection or a good quality time to fill my cup. I wonder if this is the best way to stay connected. I wonder what we could do to make sure that we can meet the needs for human connections and a sense of union.

At least I know that my kids had fun and that would be enough for now. For the long run though, we gotta figure something out so a celebration can feel a little bit more like an actual celebration.

Life with Spina Bifida| Spina Bifida Awareness Day 2018

It is Spina Bifida Awareness Day today on October 25th. October seems to be the month of awareness, but to me, it is a special month to remember what life is like with Spina Bifida.

I don’t really talk about this with people other than close family or friends so many people probably are not aware that my daughter has a birth defect called Spina Bifida. There is a great article on “What is SB?“ on the Spina Bifida Association Website explaining the ins and outs of Spina Bifida you can check out if you have a few minutes.

I was 24 weeks pregnant and we were living in China. I just remember me being alone in the examine room while my husband was waiting outside in the lobby, hoping to poke the technician a little bit to find out if we are having a boy or a girl (it is actually illegal in China to reveal gender during pregnancy) and then was notified that I should wait in the hall way to get a second scan by another expert because there might be something going on. Ever since that morning, all I know is that we’ve read so many documents, seen so many different doctors and done all the possible tests during a pregnancy.

The Chinese doctor said that it did not look good. Our baby might not be able to ever stand up, or walk, or read, or live a normal life. “You guys are still young and you should try again.” the doctors recommended.”Oh and remember to take folic acid next time.”

They mean well. However, they just don’t have enough experience with cases like this. The good thing was that we have access to doctors from other areas in the world. We went to an Australian doctor in the city where we were and she helped us and referred us to multiple neurosurgeons around the world to get a further diagnosis and an action plan for us. And one of the neurosurgeons actually became my daughter’s actual doctor now, which is really cool to me.

What is Spina Bifida to us? My girl’s official diagnosis is Lipomyelomeningocele, a word I still can’t remember how to spell. It means that her spine was not closed during the initial forming stage and has an opening on her spinal tube. And because of the opening, her spinal cord instead of being dangling in the spinal tube, it was stuck on the inside lump of her back and was pulled out of the spinal tube. She has a bump on her back. Because of the spinal cord being attached to a fat lump and pulled, some nerves are damaged. She had surgery when she was 6 months old. We didn’t know what nerves were damaged exactly and we still don’t know how some of her nerve-functions will be(including being potty trained and being able to walk on super sharp rocks).

I don’t usually talk about her condition mostly because when you look at her, you would not have guessed that she has Spina Bifida. Quoting her grandpa: “ The only thing that’s not really normal with her is that she started speaking way too early.” I as a parent, don’t really want to make it a big deal. I don’t think she is disabled enough for me to go around and say that I’m a special need parent. I don’t think we’ve really suffered as much as some of my friends who have real challenging special needs children. At the same time, I don’t want people to always say, oh I’m so sorry that this happened to her after knowing about it. I don’t want people to ask me “did you take folic acid last time?“ because I surely did. I don’t want people to treat her differently because now they know she is actually sort of different.

However, I think it’s a good time to actually bring it up. Mostly for me. But also for my daughter. And probably for people who might not know about some of the special conditions that come with life.

For me, I just want to say to myself—you are a good mom. You did all you could have done and you made the right decision to bring her to this world. You were not selfish because you were afraid of the pain of abortion and it is always good to respect life.

For my girl, I just want to say to her—you are different, but we are all different, one way or another. Go live your life the way you want and don’t let others dictate your life. And go make friends with people who are different from you.

For other people who might be hearing about this for the first time—please don’t feel sorry for us and don’t put a tag on special need children. See beyond their disabilities and focus on what amazing things they could achieve.

I’ve tried to channel my inner sorrow and the dark little spot associated with this. (Oh, believe me, I’m not saying that it was not hard. ) But every time when I focus on the fact that I went through the craziest pregnancy as a first time mom and there are so many uncertainties ahead of us, I just feel really down. And I simply don’t like it. When I spend too much time worrying if she will ever be totally normal or if I am doing all I can to protect her future siblings from having the same trials in life, I see myself buried in doubt and fear. I simply don’t like it.

While it’s healthy to express feelings, which I’m definitely not very good at and am working on, I think it can also be a good idea to just focus on the good, the bright, the positive.

During that pregnancy, time seemed to be frozen at times and to be flying by at other times. The crazy pregnancy definitely prepared me for any possible pregnancy tests—blood test, MRI, amniotic fluid test—come what may and I will deal with it. It also brought me ever closer to God. It was a good lesson to learn to stop asking why and instead to ask how I can do this thing. It was awesome to be able to get closer to family as well. It definitely helped my little family to hold together because it was seemingly us against world at some point. It was also really heart warming to really see how much my family cared about me even though their way of saying love at first was slightly different from how I wanted.

I’ll have to say that it was really cool when my girl beat all the odds and started crawling before her surgery. And then see her stood up by herself. Then see her running through rock piles. Then see her getting potty trained(mostly). And of course, it is just cool to hear her talk like a champion in both Chinese and English. I try not to be too prideful and brag too much but it is really the best thing to see your baby grow and be strong. It is also a great confirmation to me that I made the right decision back then to keep going.

Having a kid who needs special medical attention is also a very humbling experience for me. It reminds me that we all have weaknesses and how little we know. I have to trust her medical team. It’s also a great opportunity for me to practice my patience. I can remind myself that she might never be able to do certain things as fast even though she could speak faster than I could sometimes. It has also helped me to not taken things for granted and also to not over think. Not saying that I absolutely don’t actively parent all her behaviors, but I sometimes do look at her and say, hey, this might be just a three years old being a three years old, or there might be actually something going on developmentally in her brain and we will figure it out in its due time.

So, if you are friends of mine. Yup, that happened. And we are glad to have our perfect little girl in our lives.

If you are pregnant and are struggling with a diagnosis of a birth defect—you are not alone! There are amazing communities out there. Talk to other people who have gone through similar situations. No matter which country you are in, there is help and hope. And I’m here if you ever need someone to talk to :)

If you are a new mom or a woman who is thinking about getting pregnant but is scared of things going wrong during pregnancy—It’s totally normal. I had this gut feeling before I found out about it actually and I sometimes think if I actually jinxed it. But it’s also ok to just let go and go for it. Things happen and that is just part of life. Embrace the uncertainty and it can be an empowering experience if you let it to be that way.

If you are someone who just learned a new word today. Yay! You are better than I was. I didn’t know until I saw it on my ultrasound paper. Good for you!

There are so much I could say about life with Spina Bifida but I don’t think there is any better way of showing what life is like than living it!

So here is my little girl who has Spina Bifida and also someone who is extremely talented with language, who is absolutely creative, who is definitely full of life. And now, hopefully, you are aware that there is a birth defect called Spina Bifida and it does not define the capacity of someone’s life!

Thank you for reading! <3