When 3 Becomes 4

On Friday, July 22, 2022 - little Mina Linn Riesz arrived (about 2 weeks earlier than what we were expecting)!

We are super excited to grow the family, and Kaylee is so proud to be a big sister. She is constantly saying "baby sister" and trying to kiss Mina on the forehead. So far it's been relatively easy adjusting to another addition, with the help of daycare during the week and Ken off for paternity leave. We have even survived our first weekend handling 2 kiddos for the first time ever. There were moments of testing my patience, especially with Kaylee as she stretches the limits she can break through. She is fiery and independent, and often getting herself into more trouble out of her own curiosity.

As for Mina, she's got a schedule down (for now!). She isn't too fussy and barely cries or we've gotten a whole lot better at taking care of little babies. I'd like to think it's the latter. The only thing we're working on is having Mina sleeping in her own bassinet. It's always a struggle at night, but some times there are little wins here and there. It's a work in progress and I'm hoping we can get this right way of sleeping early on - because Kaylee was hard to sleep train and still is.

Looking at these 2 girls, I cannot wait to see how they interact with each other and develop their relationship. Each with their own personalities, likes and dislikes, thoughts and opinions, etc. Each learning quickly and living life to the fullest. It's such a privilege to be able to raise these 2 girls and get to see their perspectives grow over time.

In the short term, I'm on maternity leave and putting together a short bucket list of things I need to get done - some personal, some professional, and some just for fun or what I've been putting off forever. I have to keep myself busy during this time, because sitting around has always never been good for me, you'll even see me updating this website a little bit more often than usual.

Learning About Grit

Recently I completed reading my first book in a very long time and by very long time I mean YEARS. I set the simple goal for myself in hopes that I would finally do it, and let me just say it was well worth it. For one, I'm proud of myself for following through but two, I did a lot of reflection and looking ahead at how to personally develop myself into who I want to be in the future.

I chose to read "Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance" by Angela Duckworth, and honestly I don't think I understood what the word meant till now. As I continue on my self enlightenment journey of book reading, I did want to keep myself accountable to the lessons and learnings by summarizing the key takeaways I left with.

1. I'm in between the 40 - 50 percentile when it comes my Grit Score of a 3.6, and that's surprisingly lower than I thought I would be. I figured that my ability to work hard would translate to grit, yet somehow I can see how my passion and perseverance can go through a lot of ebbs and flows causing that lower score. I don't hold my goals steadily over time, I struggle to complete and achieve the ones I personally set but not the ones others set for me.

2. In order to grow my grit, I'm going to need to put an action plan together. Right now, I don't have an ultimate or top level goal that I resonate with and I'm trying to identify what that could be. If I'm able to determine what that is and consistently work towards it over a LONG period of time, I'll be able to map out those smaller goals much better. Where I can't seem to fit is what I'm passionate about, whether for my career or for my family or for myself. I think I'm on a path of figuring that out at the moment.

3. In the meantime, I've picked up what Angela calls a Hard Thing Rule. You choose an interest and work on it until it is accomplished according to a certain time frame and the hard thing requires daily deliberate practice. Right now, I've committed myself to learning UX design, something I've been thinking about constantly as it's more of a creative outlet than by typical day-to-day responsibilities. I've joined Coursera and I'm working towards earning a certificate and building out a portfolio. Once I've completed it, I intend to reach out to small businesses where I can and start offering my services and expertise for free in return for practice. I'm hoping this will help me cultivate my grit even further.

4. Finally, I want to make sure grit is engrained into my life from here on out whether that be through parenting, my relationships, or where I plan to grow my career. I need more help from the outside in, I need amazing mentors who are willing to teach and spend time with me. I need to surround myself with people who have a similar growth mindset and understand how to translate that passion I see in them onto myself.

There's a lot more to grit than I threw in this random stream of consciousness of a blog post, and I hope I can bring more of the key insights into my thoughts and future blogs. While I'm at it, I'm currently reading my next book - Shoe Dog by Phil Knight. We'll see how this one goes! Signing off with yet another cute photo of Kaylee. 6 more weeks until the next little girl arrives!

We've Been Keeping a Secret...

This family is about to get a little bit bigger, and we're super excited about it! We are expecting another little girl in August 2022. 💖

Parenting Kaylee has been absolutely everything we wanted, and seeing her grow up and exploring this world has been eye opening in some ways. Teaching her new things every day while she discovers herself and having a front seat view of this all is just absolutely crazy. I know my Instagram is literally filled with pictures of her, and you can expect this new baby to blow up my feed as well. Never did I think I would become this type of mom. This family has become the center of my world, and I'm so happy and appreciative to have it.

Surviving the first trimester again did take a little bit more in me to get through, but we're half way there now and I'm feeling so much better. I've regained a lot of my energy, and the morning sickness finally subsided. Now it's about keeping up with Kaylee while I get so much bigger, and let's just say I'm definitely getting bigger faster.

This time around we're very slow to get ready. No new nesting has begun. I've been kind of procrastinating it all knowing what to expect in the next year or so. Ken and I want to continue looking for new houses in DFW but as you can expect it's super competitive. Both of us have been working hard to build up savings and landing us a new home that we can call "forever" hopefully! With all that in mind, I've had zero motivation prepping another new space and might regret it, but we shall see....

Little one has gone through all the initial tests and we are passing with flying colors, nothing alarming has popped up yet. She's a mover! When she's awake, she's kicking and moving all over the place - it makes it very difficult to get a great picture of her unfortunately. Here's what we got so far as a first look. 😀