Half Dot Brooklyn

Recently confirmed things about kids:

They are naturally helpful beings, contrary to what Hobbes and Machiavelli thought.

According to the marshmallow experiment (reenacted here), there’s some direct link between a kid’s ability to sit in a room unattended with a big fat marshmallow and his or her future academic achievements.

And most recently from the NY Times’ 9th Annual Year in Ideas, that infant sleep is destiny – good sleeping habits in babies lead to better executive-funtion abilities in childhood. Hm, alright, that seems to be aiming a bit high. My son sleeps about 11 hours a night (and my husband and I thank our lucky stars for that) and all that I expect is he’ll have lots of energy to play when he wakes up.

My little son is one!

It’s been such a crazy and exciting year, watching our little baby grow into a fiesty kiddo with spikey hair, and such a delight to finally fit him in the Half Dot coats that I designed before he was born.

It has also taken one whole year for me to reflect and begin to talk about how I was afflicted with hyperemesis gravidarium (HG) for the eight months I was pregnant. HG often gets misdiagnosed as a bad case of morning sickness, but it is a debilitating and life-threatening disease for both the mother and baby that if left untreated leads to weight loss, malnutrition and dehydration due to unrelenting nausea and vomiting. HG is like morning sickness gone wrong – intensified exponentially with no end in sight.

It’s hard to be a happy mama when you’re that sick, but thanks to the support of loving family, optimistic friends, and careful doctors, I did alright. When we didn’t have visitors coming over to cheer me up, I kept myself busy with work. I was just starting Half Dot at the time, and I really have it to thank for helping me not fall into a hole of misery and self-pity. Each morning I’d wake up hoping to get a few things done. Each completed task – a design drawn, a fabric purchased, a sample sewn – was a small and proud victory. And as Half Dot grew from an idea into real little plaid coats, I started thinking ahead, imagining my first trade show, Half Dot’s webshop debut, and a healthy happy little son running around in a Half Dot coat.

A year has gone by, I am fortunate and blessed, because all these things have happened.

Now I’m thinking ahead again, to next year when I will link Half Dot to the HER foundation to help increase HG awareness and funding for research, to my new line of spring/summer outerwear, and to many more adventures in the city with my husband and little son.