theo at 20 months: walking-talking

the last time i blogged about theo 'fears' were hounding me as i was quite worried of possible developmental delays since he wasn't yet walking and talking then. but as i believed, theo was only taking a slow but sure pace and he will walk and talk when he's ready... and that's what he did. at 17 months, we saw theo trying to do few small steps. days after, the few small steps became steady and confident and he was already striding inside our room but only for a short moment. it was inside the playroom in hamilo coast when jude and i confirmed to ourselves that "hey, theo is really walking now" as he crossed the big room by just using his feet.

 

now, at 20 months, theo is already unstoppable and he'd move around whenever he likes it.

 

 

 

it was only recently that we realized that theo was already talking. funny that i even expressed my worries to his pedia whom we visited for theo's booster shot one month ago. i never knew that theo's mumbling sounds already have meanings. haha. he calls inigo "ya" for kuya; "ghe" for she or sheryl, our househelp; "dhack" for duck and its sound is "dhack-dhack"; '"bibe" for baby; to name a few. now i just have to wait for him to string words together. i hope it's soon.

 

 

and what do you know... theo is one uber-jealous baby! i can't hug nor lean on his daddy when he's around or else he'll scream on top of his lungs. i also can't hug nor make lambing to inigo or he'll hit his old brother. he also has mood swings now. he's not always ready to give his smile, which was so unlikely of him. if he doesn't like to give the  kiss or embrace that our relatives are asking from him, he'll say "no!" and turn his back...   the baby has an attitude, a feisty attitude that is. :)

even his relationship with his big brother has now become 'sweet and sour'. they love to play together but give them a couple of minutes and they're already at war. it's usually because they're fighting over the same toy and this gives theo the reason to hit again his kuya for the latter is not giving in. *sigh*

 

 

it's probably because he copies everything that his kuya does that's why i find theo mature for his age. he usually doesn't want to be left behind - if inigo can do it, so can theo, too! hehe. he now wants to feed himself, read... err, pretend to read books, play with his kuya inigo's toys or games, and play with the gadgets in our house. which amazed me as he really knew how to operate them. :D

 

 

 

educating a child... how costly can it be!

it's mid-may already, four more weeks to go and inigo is going to school again. i haven't yet enrolled him since i still have two more weeks before the school's deadline and am hoping that the money we saved for his tuition which is still kept in the bank will double before the deadline... joke! :)

we will only send one kindergarten to school, mind you, and yet we can already feel the pinch of educating a child. what more if we're already sending two or three kids, or sending kids to college? i hope we're still able by then.

 

it's  just last week when i saw the facebook post of UST, my alma mater, with a schedule of tuition for the coming school year and i was  shocked that the fee for one semester now is more than php 50k while it was only php 8k during my time--almost seven times the amount my parents paid to send me to college. made a little computation and i figured that by the time inigo studies in college we need at least php 350k for one semester if the rate of tuition increase remains the same for the next twelve years. multiply the amount by eight semesters and we need to spend around php 3 million for inigo's college education alone. we're not yet even talking about the course which my son will get. the php 8k was the tuition in my college, which is AB (or liberal arts in some schools)-- one of the cheapest courses in UST. so how much do you think we should raise since inigo wants to become a pilot or an astronaut? *jitters*

jude was half-joking when he mused that his kids should become varsity members in college so we will be spared from paying for their tuition. hehe. i know it's possible but right now we're pressured to save more for their future. we realized that the pension plans we're paying for annually, which we're hoping to use for inigo and theo's college education, are not enough. they can only send the kids for two semesters and done.

***
oh by the way, it's not only inigo who's back to school this june. jude is seriously planning to enroll in a graduate course on environmental management not only to boost his credentials but also to earn a number of units in order for him to teach again (he was a former high school teacher in don bosco technical institute). so if the time comes that he quits his corporate job we don't need to worry on how we're going to fund the kids' education.

let's get fit and fab!

bad news. the results of our APE just came in this week and surprise, surprise, jude's cholesterol level is way beyond the upper limit of the normal range. (i hope jude won't kill me for telling it here, but as if it isn't obvious. hehe.) now he's in a strict no-fat, high-fiber diet. thinking of meals for him is quite a challenge since i don't want to starve my dear husband by just letting him eat veggies and oatmeal all day. though i already made some veggies recipes a staple on our table since last year like nilagang talbos ng kamote, sinabawang kalabasa at malunggay, ginisang ampalaya (yes my kids eat them! :)) but we also had guilty food trips which are usually high in fat, high in sugar, and high in sodium which is spelled as f-a-s-t-f-o-o-d m-e-al-s. now it's payback time. :(

but i know it's not yet late to change our lifestyle. we just really need to watch what we eat and get more active. i try to jog as often as i could now as time (and the kids) allow me. sometimes i tag jude along... and i tell you, it's addictive! the feeling after is so good that i want to do it again and again. though i also not to push myself too hard since am still skinny and also needs those fats! hehe.

but now that jude really needs to shed those fats that's i make jogging now part of our weekly routine. hay... am missing those pre-wedding days when we can climb and hike as long as time and budget permit. you should have seen the abs of jude then. :P

i pay it forward

there's a discussion in the forum i'm subscribed of about giving financial support to our parents as one member shared her problem to the group, which i no longer want to divulge, and received a quite substantial amount of replies and/or advices.

it struck a chord on me and made me think deeper on how should someone, especially a married person, should deal with this kind of concern. i know the bible already told us how and it's reminded to us in our wedding. but because we're only mortals and we either forget or ignore, that's why time comes when we feel we're clueless on what to do.

when i was still single i was obliged to give a part of my salary to help my parents afford our monthly expenses, especially when my ate settled down and stopped giving her contribution, which i understood. but when it's my time to settle down, my financial support also stopped. (though i was thankful that my parents small business which i partly funded was already flourishing and they no longer need my help) because for one, i had to divert my income to the family which i'll be raising with jude. except for car and some appliances which were gifted to us, jude and i had to buy and invest in a lot of things. then babies came along and we need to fed, clothe, and entertain them; hence, more money is needed. i left the workforce and it's only jude who's working for us and we need to budget his income wisely to afford everything we deem necessary. luckily his income now is quite better compared to what he had been receiving from his former office that's why we can also give a little to our own families.

another reason why i also chose to prioritize our family's (jude, me, and the kids) needs over our parents is because we also need to save for our future, including our retirement. another member of the forum said, "i want to end the cycle (of passing on the obligation to the children) with us and let not my future kids suffer the same fate as us." very well said. and i share the same reason why i asked jude to save for our retirement. i know future doesn't really guarantee that our savings would be enough to pay for our food and medicines in our old age but at least, our kids saw that we prepared for this stage as no preparations mean that we really intend to rely on them.

if there's one thing that i should do now as married child is to pay the goodness of my parents, but i know they understood that it's by paying forward and that is to secure a bright future for my own kids, and that includes parents who won't be a burden during their old age. i  know that's ingratitude in our culture, but i call it 'good parenting'.