Happy 10th Month, Johan!

You’ve been eating well and I love how you refuse to let go of your spoon whenever you’re finished with your veggies. I will be here to nourish you with all the food that I think is best for you until the day you know what is good for you yourself.

You have a growing sense of curiosity about all the things that surround you. I love that you are being very observant of your surroundings and rest assured that I will always be here to answer all your question no matter how mundane it will all be.

You’re showing signs of having passion for reading like me. I will be here to read you stories from now until the day you ask me to stop so you can read them all yourself.

You are learning to be independent and fearless to try things on your own. Remember that I will be in the shadows with my arms always ready to catch you if you fall.

Above all the new things that you learn everyday, please keep on giving me those charming, sweet smiles and be Mommy's Little Man a little bit longer.

Happy 10th month birthday, Johan! Mommy and Daddy love you so much!

1000 Runners for 1 Heart, Run for Sofia Ysabel

I have followed her story thru the blog her parents aptly named SofiaYsabel. Sofia Ysabel was born with an extra chromosome, Trisomy 21 or Down Syndrome and Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, later on she had to undergo Peritoneal dialysis for her kidneys. She’s been in the Nicu since April 25, just 20 days since she was born, until the 23rd of July, when she passed away.

I was crying while I was reading her parents’ words for her after she died and I can barely see the tribute video because I was crying really hard.

I do not know Sofia or her family personally. I cannot imagine how devastated her family is because of her death.

Being a mother myself - I don’t know what I will do, where to get strength from, how to have a good amount of faith - for me to get through if in case my child dies. I truly admire the strength, faith and love that Sofia’s family have. May they be continuously blessed with such.

Now, if you want to help the family, you may want to participate in the run organized for the benefit of Sofia Ysabel. All the proceeds will be given to her family to settle the bills that were incurred when she was hospitalized.

Details are as follows:

When: August 27, 2011, 6am
Where: Piazza at Venice, McKinley Hill, Taguig
Registration is only for Php 500.00 for both 3k and 5k. This is a benefit run. Registered runners will only be given a race bib, no singlet as well as timing chip.

Learn more about Sofia:
http://sofiaysabel.wordpress.com

Learn more about the benefit run:
https://www.facebook.com/runforsofiaysabel
http://runforsofiaysabel.wordpress.com/

If you can’t join the run, may I please ask you to spread the word instead so more people will learn about the event.

Thanks.

Missing “Us”

I love being a mom to Johan and given a choice, I’d still take that path.

But.

Everyday has been overwhelming – with me taking care of him, some chores to do at home, some errands to run and hubby going to work. I sometimes feel that we’ve taken our relationship for granted. Yes, we’ve been great parents and we’ve given Johan our full attention but I think we’re not doing as much as we should when it comes to us being husband and wife. All our conversations are now centered around our child and we, most often that we would’ve wanted, fail to ask how each of our days went.

I miss our Puerto Galera days, I miss our malling, I miss our talks, I miss eating out and taking the time to digest our food. I miss “us”.

Just feeling sentimental on this rainy Tuesday night. =(

Inch by Inch

Have I mentioned in this blog that we don’t have our own house yet? We are living with my in laws so the interiors and furniture are theirs and not ours. I know some of you would understand me when I say that it’s hard to move around a place that is not your own, it’s hard to act as the “home maker” when it’s not really your house and how it would make one a happier person simply by having the choice on what shade to paint your walls.

What I can only consider as ours is our bedroom. This is our own little space and inch by inch, we are marking it as ours by doing some changes here and there.

The first thing that we had made was our cabinet. When we moved in, there’s just a tiny dresser which can only fit Johan’s clothes. We had to make more storage for other stuff and we need to have some space for the computer. So, we had a cabinet custom made with a space for the tv and sound system, for the computer and lots of storage for Johan’s clothes.

From top to bottom: the LED TV and sound system as posted here, my own little space – the computer desk and Johan’s own space with his clothes and shoes. I bought the blue container baskets in Daiso for P88.00 each.

Just recently, we had to make room for the Air Conditioner that we bought. It would be impossible because our window looked like this:

old school jalousie window glass

We had it changed to a sliding panel that has a slot at the top for the air conditioner. So now, our window looks better:

And so does our newly-installed air conditioner which Johan (and Mommy) love.

Hopefully, we could have our walls repainted the next time and then I have to customize our headboard because it looks hideous.

We might not have our own home yet, we may not be able to have it in the near future. So, I’m doing the best I could with the tiny space that we have right now. We’re making it our own little “home”. We’re getting there. Inch by inch.

Pink Dresses

I’ve been looking at pink dresses tonight and wondering what would suit me best. Although I haven’t stepped on the scale yet, I know that I gained a lot and my post partum tummy probably has a mind of it’s own refusing to shrink back to it’s pre-pregnancy size. See that “dream BIG” text on the photo above? I inserted that because just looking at the body frames of the models, I do need to dream HUGE that I will fit in any one of those dresses.

Wondering why I’m searching for pink dresses? Well, come October 1st, I don’t want to wear anything like this and steal the show from the birthday boy.



I don’t want to wear a full length tiered gown for Johan’s Super Mario themed party but I’d still want to look like a princess, hence the pink dresses. Maybe I’ll just add in a small tiara or a jeweled hair band.

Any suggestions?

Mommy Moments – Family Trips

 

Since Johan was born, the three of us (me, hubby and Johan) only went to two out of town trips. First, was a trip to Tagaytay in January with our college buddies who came home from Hawaii.

The second was the annual Tan family outing in Laguna.



Hopefully, we could go to more out-of-town trips in the years to come.

Happy Mommy Moments, everyone!

Johan’s Best Buddies

Let me introduce to you Johan’s current best friends:

Chirpy

Jasper

Humphrey

Sandy

 Dan

These are the characters from Johan’s favorite Touch and Feel book, Chirpy Chick. This is a good book because it is colorful and comes with different textures. I wonder, though, why there aren’t any lights and sounds coming from Dan, the tractor, when there should have been  a surprise sound at Dan’s page.

I say this is Johan’s favorite because whenever we lay on the bed and I spread the book in front of him, he stops whatever he is doing to “read”. He loves touching Chirpy’s feathers, Jasper’s vinyl nose and their moving eyes.

These past few days, however, I realized he found another thing to love about the book. Holes!

Playing peek-a-boo with his foot!

He does this everytime, he’ll put his foot in the hole and laugh then remove it from the hole and put it back again and laugh again. So cute!

Caffe Ti Amo

Last week, our family spent an entire Sunday in Makati. We hopped from one mall to the next starting at SM Makati then Glorietta then Landmark and ended up at Greenbelt where we had lunch at Bonchon Chicken in Greenbelt 1. We then had dessert in Caffe Ti Amo.


Caffe Ti Amo is a nice little cafe offering mouth watering gelatos.



We all had piccolo-sized gelatos in different flavors. I was craving for blueberry cheesecake days before so when I saw a blueberry flavored gelato I immediately ordered one.


Wrong choice. I realized a little too late that the taste of a blueberry cheesecake is far too different from a blueberry gelato. My gelato is sour, very sour. Or maybe I just have a sweet tooth. That teensy little cup took me ages to finish. I was envious of my sister's Dulce de Leche gelato.

Anyway, the next time I visit Caffe ti Amo, I’ll know what not to order. =)

Planning for Two

My best friend, Mhy, and I share the same birth month, January. Coincidentally, our kids also share the same birth month which is October. Johan was born on October 4 and her son, Ethan was born on October 16. I hope the two kids will also grow up as best of friends.

Anyway, now that both of the kids’ first birthdays are coming up, aside from my own planning, I’m also helping out Mhy plan for Ethan’s celebration because they are based in Singapore. It has been a lot of fun so far because both of our chosen themes are pretty good. I’m doing a Super Mario Brothers theme for Johan and Mhy chose Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for Ethan.

See how nice our invites are? I designed both invites, btw.





My brain is on full speed these days. I’ve got tons of ideas for both of our events and I can only hope the guests of both parties would enjoy what we have prepared.

But most importantly, I wish that these two adorable little guys together with their equally pretty mommies would have loads of fun on their first birthdays.

PLM Planking

I first saw this on Maude’s blog here. Unfortunately or rather thankfully, when I tried to go to the Facebook page of PLM Planking to get some photos, the account has been brought down already. So, the photos that I’m posting were taken from Maude’s blog instead. (Thanks, Maude!)

According to Gizmodo.com:

“Planking is the act of lying facedown for a photograph. The term planking originated from Australia but is actually just another name for 'the lying down game' (I'm not kidding). The specific instructions: to put your body face down to the ground (or table, or object, or anything) with your arms to the side.”

My thoughts? Here goes:

I have no problem with anyone doing planking. I don’t care about your reasons - be it to become popular or to prove something.

But, I have a huge problem if you do this in my school uniform. It’s the school uniform that I wore with pride for five years.

Sure, it’s not the prettiest.

I’ve been teased by high school batchmates who went to Sta. Isabel and Colegio de San Juan de Letran and during that time, yes, I thought their uniforms looked better than mine.

Neither is it the most comfortable.

I’ve fallen more than once while wearing that pencil-cut skirt. I have to hike it up to my thighs when I had to brave the floods in Manila. It has always, always been a huge effort to ride a jeepney.

But it is such great honor to be able to wear it.

To be given the privilege, you have to do a  great job at the PLM Admissions Test for you to get in and you have to give blood, sweat and tears (like the rest of us did) just to stay inside. I fought hard to remain an Iska and proudly I graduated as one.

So, doing a foolish stupid act like planking, just for the heck of it, wearing MY uniform is a big deal for me.

Plank all you want but take that uniform off. Do it in the nude for all I care. Show a little respect to the University and to the Local Government of Manila that is paying for your college tuition fee.

Disgusted,

Party Preps

I’ve been really busy planning for Johan’s first birthday. I know it’s more than a couple of months away but really, time flies. Of the many ideas that I have in mind, I don’t even know if I’ll be able to execute even half of it.

I’m finally done designing the button pins that we’ll be attaching to the loot bags and would serve as thank you notes.



I also did some editing on the invite that I already made a few months ago.



The first invite is the one on the left and the edited invite is the one on the right. Better, no? I only posted the upper part of the invite as I will be doing more tweaking on the bottom part like the bar codes. Bar codes for what? You’ll see.

I wish the cake supplier I contacted on Facebook would respond to my message. I initially sent her the design of the cake that I wanted and she sent me a quote already then I sent in some additional designs but she haven’t replied yet since last week. Her quote is within my budget range so I just hope my booking would push through.

There are still lots to be done and I hope to be able to finish everything that I have in mind. With all these preps, I also hope that the party will be a huge success.

Wish me luck?

Who do you think you are?

I’m so sorry for this post but I am still seething from yesterday’s experience during lunch at Bonchon in Greenbelt 1.

My family and I were already seated at the right side of the place, in one of the two “high tables”. We were with 3 kids below the age of 7 and one infant, Johan. Imagine how difficult it was for the kids to sit on the bar-like stools, not to mention, dangerous if in case one of the kids fall. So, when we noticed some customers seated at the lower tables were already done eating we told one of the staff to reserve the table and we’re going to switch to theirs once they left.

But due to the number of customers entering the restaurant there is a huge possibility that the table we had asked to be reserved would be taken. So, me and Johan sat on the table beside the one we were waiting to be vacant. On the table we were waiting were seated three persons, I assumed the dad, the daughter and the son. They were already done eating and were just chatting. Let me just make this clear, we were patiently waiting and were sitting down. We were not acting like shadows standing behind these people and we NEVER asked them to stand up or leave. I was even playing with Johan and singing some nursery rhymes.

After a while, a woman emerged from the washroom and sat beside the dad, I assume the Mom. Then the dad stood up and went to the washroom and when he came back, he and their children stood up and left the restaurant. During this time, I was already standing knowing they were about to leave and my sister was already with me and Johan. But the mom stayed seated, took her time to retouch her make up (remember she just came from the washroom) and sipped some water. But we never said a word even if it was already 2 in the afternoon and we haven’t had lunch yet, the kids were getting edgy, still we patiently waited for her to leave.

When all of a sudden she stood up and pushed her chair hard making it bang against the table. My sister and I were surprised and we know that it was no accident. The other customers in the restaurant heard it as well and maybe due to our stomachs growling and to the fact that we are not known to make incidents like these pass, my sister and I called out to the woman, “Is there a problem?” “who do you think you are?”, numerous times to which she paid no attention to.

My sister and I were really itching to run up to her and confront her but our companions were telling us to just let it go.

I hate people like these. People who act like they’re better than everyone.

So, to you, Madam, just because you’re dressed better than anyone else at Bonchon, it does not give you the right to act like you own the place. We were all paying customers and the place is no fine dining restaurant anyway so pull your act together and go get some manners.

Just who do you think you are???