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.

wazzup?

i realized that i've not been blogging for some time now. i got a lot of chika and pix to share but everytime i attempted to make a post, my fingers were already busy with something else OR i was already dead tired and my mind was no longer working. that's what i get for deciding not to have a yaya or helper (heaven knows till when) since we disposed our last one. making my situation worse, iñigo is at his naughtiest these days, AS IN! i wonder if this is just a phase... i do hope it is.

even weekends find us busy. we raid clearance sales which i got to learn from the forum i belong with, drop by malls and tiangge-lands in the metro, and visit some old friends who are here in the country for christmas.

speaking of christmas, what a way to celebrate it but have a mini-reunion with friends who we rarely see and i'm very excited as there are several dates (i.e. days-off) which is already in my calendar. jude is also extra busy as his friends in don bosco are meeting up regularly now to accommodate their balikbayan friends.

we're also busy attending christmas parties. for tonight alone, we will attend two (and shell out some bucks for the exchange gifts and foods--heck, it's part of the fun!) and by tomorrow, there's another two and one of these is the party of p&g for its employees' kids. then the christmas parties in our office next week... and another christmas party by the homeowners of our subdivision, where i will sit as a secretary of the board next year.

christmas is really a joyous occasion. i wonder what this season has to prompt us to reconnect with people who are/were dear to us, be extra generous, be more cheerful and kind. is it because of the cold weather? or the 13th month pay and bonuses? or is because of a yearful of blessings which make us pay back thru our loved ones and other people, strangers included? i guess it's probably one reason why christmas is on the last month of the year, to conclude the year with kindness and goodness.

thank GOD for this year, thank GOD for this christmas, and thank GOD for the coming new year, especially now that a very big blessing awaits us in 2009.

next year ko na lang ikuwento, baka maudlot... hehe.

hint: it's not a new baby... not yet. =)

 

 

 

 

why i was having apprehensions on migrating to another country

someone from the forum i belong with gave me the answer.

read her blog:  http://livingmyotherlife.com/2008/11/25/protecting-my-childs-innocence/

you may not know it but i have draft post in this site on our plan to migrate to another country in the near future. and what a coincidence that the country where this forummate of mine come from is the same country we eye to build a new nest for our family--new zealand. but the plan still remains a plan as we never made a serious effort to apply in its consulate office here in makati. even i myself doubt our interests to leave the philippines and settle for good in a foreign land. i have a lot of questions and apprehensions which i wanted to address first before we take the first step.

i never thought racism still exists in that country and i've never given this a thought. but if it's still do exist, even how isolated that case may be, then i would never entertain the idea again of migrating. as the author of the blog said, we adults can take it. i think i can take it for myself. but i definitely won't take it for my son and his future sibling. no one can cast stones on my kids even how fair their skin may be. no one also has any right to categorize my son an inferior class just because of his heritage.

if that's what it takes to have a cleaner environment, a nicer house, a colder climate, a better future though it's not certain then i think i can forego them all together just by knowing that my son is a first class citizen on where he lives.

 

musings over this financial crisis

since i can't still blog about my son's walk down the aisle (heaven knows when we'll be able to get copies of his photos...), i just want to take time out from the frivolities of our life, which ain't much i tell you, and grieve here on the worsening financial crisis, which is not only happening in our country or in asian region, but around the globe; and it's really paralyzing to know that developed countries like united states of america, japan, and iceland are the first to be hit.

we're really feeling low tonight. it's actually jude who started it and the first to greet me as soon as i arrived home from work was his news that the philippine stock market sharply declined today; his pensive mood over this matter is contagious and i end up now more praning. *sighs* i really feel that there's a looming invisible war and i don't know how am gonna shield my family from all its devastations and effects. i became, and i think this is also holds true for jude and the other parents as well, more concerned with the matters of the world since i had my son.

i'm not ranting because we have so much investments to worry about. we only have a few shares in some publicly-listed companies and mutual funds, which i earmark for our retirement for the simple reason that we don't want to be a burden to our son when we get old; while our bigger stake is in jude's company based abroad, and this we save for our son's college education along with jude's lump-sum pension that will mature 15 years from now. the money involved may not be significant to some but for us, it's already our future!  

and against to what our current neda chief opined in the news this evening, this economic downturn will all trickle down to the middle-class and the poor sooner or later. (i really can't figure out why a non-economics graduate heads the economic planning department of the country) because more than the stock market and peso value crashing, what's bothering is the threat of all these again on employment, which i think is the one that really scares me. no one can give the assurance right now that his company is a very stable company and his job is a very stable job. though i am keeping a job, jude remains to be the breadwinner in our family and just the thought that he will lose his job already makes me cringe. again, it's nakakapraning... and very, very disappointing. i already planned 2009 as early as now but with the turn of events, i think i have to forget some of those, which is to be a full-time homemaker as number one in my list (it's always... but it never ever happened, hehe).

we also probably have to think of plan B just in case worse comes to worst, like migrating? hehe.

jude thought that we cut corners in some items, which i think is an extra challenge as i already trimmed down our expenses. i hope to give up the things that matters significantly to us but i think those would also have to go when there's no other choice left.

*sighs*

i just hope that things will get better very, very soon.

missing, musing, and mountaineering

i miss, we miss, our pre-wedding days. it's the time of our life when we didn't care about other things but how to spend our leisure time--and we have lots of it!  and we have a lot of people to spend it with, too! it only takes one text message and we already have a date, "saan ka? ano gawa mo 2nyt? tara, meet tayo sa shang (or megamall perhaps)!" that easy. and we killed time either inside the mall or over a bottle of booze inside a middle-end bar, with chitchats as our pulutan.

i also miss the days when you only have for yourself the money you earn. when upon receiving your bonus you go straight to the mall to buy the item you've been drooling over for a period of time. or join the gimmick or travel your friends are planning to have.

hay! those were the days... i love, we love, our life right now. but there are times that we get the pangs of self-indulgence, but we resist it of course with all our might. but there are moments when the flesh is stronger than the will... =D and we give in.

***

and we also miss our mountaineering group--metropolitan mountaineering society--and its people... uhm, some of its people i mean (or jude might pull my hair). hehe.

we miss the climbs and the sidetrips. we miss the gimmicks and the parties. we miss the meet-ups and the tambay na wala lang.

and so last saturday, after haggling for a lower price of the ticket (hello, feeling nila rich lahat ng members! =D) we--jude and moi--decided to attend the graduation party of this year's batch. iñigo was in tow as we still can't leave him with our new househelp. that also explains why we have to leave early. siempre wala akong picture because i forgot to bring our camera kaya i snagged some photos from the other members (sshh!)

they have igorot as a theme, btw. (kaya andali nakacollect ng penalty fee for non-compliance... hmp!)

batch 2008

 

the rowdy crowd, including jude.

year after year, there is a batch of new faces i welcome in the group. and almost every year i get the feeling that i've already met some of them in the previous years only they wear a different face now.

to be more specific they also have the mr. hunk wannabe, the kikay girl who has no qualms of showing what she got (meron nga ba?) and can do, at aba... meron din gustong biktimahin ni mr. "toot-toot"! hahaha. there's also the kuya ng bayan who seems to be the knight of the damsels of the batch, or the ate ng bayan for that matter. i want the list to go on but i think i better stop as there are also members in my contacts who attended the party. 'kala n'yo, huh! hehe. =D

and as usual it was a night of fun and inuman. booze and foods were overflowing, kahit 4 dishes lang. =D but since iñigo was with us and he has a sleeping time that we should consider, we bid goodbye much earlier than the others. =(

'till next event.

***

and since we were already there, i managed to ask the new batch on their roster of open climbs (climbs open to members and guests as well). i asked because jude and i, for the longest time now, are itching to wear our trekking shoes again and step it on on a rugged terrain. just one climb for us before the year ends will do! i would really love to climb again; to shed the unwanted fats in the middle portion of my body... hihi; to go outside our turf and see the breathtaking sceneries of far-flung places; to breathe fresh air and greet the fog in the morning; and just to be there up on a mountain, it's already something for me.

but it's just a plan. i am not sure though if we could still squeeze it in in our busy schedule (naks!) or i can already leave behind our now very amusing little boy even just for one night. the tot can't even stand not seeing us for more than five hours and he'll already kulit his caregiver with "mommy... daddy... why? (he still has to learn the word "where". hehe.)"

and with this, i began to miss again our pre-wedding days. it's when we can easily decide if we can join a climb or not. take note, not even our jobs can stop us! nyahaha. the only things that can get in the way are lack of budget (but i know some people particularly students who pawn their bikes or other valuable items just to join a climb) or typhoon... "can you take the risk? we'll still push thru." sounds family! =) again, it just takes either one reply thru email or text to confirm if one will join. even the pre-climb meetings were something to look forward to... kasi may gimmick afterwards. hehe.

hay... those were the days...=)

 

 

almost a terrible-R two

two more weeks to go and our little boy is already two, yey! we're still undecided though if we're going to have a party, or just take a day off from our usual routine and bring iñigo to places he would love to be like paradizoo in tagaytay and enchanted kingdom in sta. rosa (we have three entrance tickets in EK given to us by jude's company). the latter is winning for the daddy while i favor the party since we've already bought the lootbags and prizes for the guest kids... sayang naman. but it's also okay for me to just spend the day hopping from one iñigo-will-surely-enjoy place to another so we can relieve ourselves from additional stress and expenses as we already have tons of these right now. =D

well, i just hope that whatever happens on that day, the little boy will have a great time on his "beeyday". 

but am sure he will. =)

*****

but more than the preparation for his birthday, his daddy and i are bracing ourselves for a more action-filled and exasperating moments with him in the coming months. MORE MULTIVITAMINS, please? what do we expect? the little tot is going to be a certified terrible-R two in two-weeks time! can i say both "yipee!" and "oh no!"? =D

but inspite of his KAKULITAN, KALIKUTAN, and KAPILYUHAN (these words really deserve to be in all caps) iñigo is still one bundle of joy for us as he never fails to surprise and amuse us everyday with his new antics... and even his bloopers. you should see how he dances with the "low" song, his favorite recently; he even made up his own choreography, which made the daddy and the mommy amazed.

iñigo is such a wonderful boy and in almost all aspects he is someone we are proud of and adore so much.

walkie-talkie

along with the big progress in his motor skills is the remarkable improvement on his communication skills, which made me erase my worries that my son has a problem on... uhm... erase, erase. and now we're afraid that we have a mynah bird for a son as there are times that he doesn't get tired of talking. he can speak in phrases now and is even trying on simple sentences, "babye toys! seep... mommy (i'll sleep now with mommy).

his "a-po" (opo) and "aibuu" (i love you) are music to my ears and are sure to make me smile. hihi.

and he'd say "burp!" and laugh off after he belched and "pupu" after he farted. our son is gross, i tell you. =D

it's always that he tells us on what he wants or what he feels, even his lolo jun observed this on him. hence, we never had a hard time communicating with iñigo even at his age. though i hope when he says, "mommy, hurt" he really mean it and not just to make paawa so i would stop being mad at him.

attorney-in-the-making

my son is very good at making palusot. we already noticed this when he was younger--15 months or so. he'd easily get his way out by making valid excuses as he knows what gets our approval and what's not. he'd say "water" when i see him rummaging on what's inside of our refrigerator even if it's not really water but yakult or the sweets that he's after to. but he's quick to say water because he knew that it's a good excuse for him to open our refrigetor and just touch anything inside it. see???

the great imitator

imitating is what toddlers love to do and our son is no exemption on this. with his keen observation, he can do exactly what we're doing just by watching us once. he can put on the charger of the celfone and plug it (horrors!) and put on lipstick or lip balm as how he sees me doing it (jude is more horrified with this. haha)

he'd also surprise his daddy when he tinker the tool box and demonstrate how a screw driver and wrench work. and once in while, our little tot would remind us that we have to save as early as now for his very first car as he is already learning the ropes of driving. he'd go first in locking or unlocking the door, turning on or off the engine and removing the car keys and dig this:  "seatbet, mommy/daddy", reminding us to fasten our seatbelts. sorry po! hehe.

he also loves to explore and that includes getting inside our refrigerator to check how cold it is as he'd usually complain "hot, mommy." 

foodaholic

one thing we like about iñigo is he's not a picky-eater (hmm... well, there are times but very seldom) and is not a hard-to-feed kid. i think it's already given that he loves to eat foods from jollibee and mcdonald but he also has the same enthusiasm to eat when we tell him that chicken, fish, or veggies is in our meals. a lot of people who see him eating alone would remark, "ang sarap kumain." =)

there are even times that he would eat non-stop which made me thinking, "bundat na kaya anak ko?" hahaha.

i really do hope that his appetite won't change.

mommy's boy

and he's indeed my adorable little boy who i love to cuddle and shower with kisses morning till evening, but with some bellowings and chidings in between. hehe. i would complain of him being clingy or too demanding for my attention but the truth is i love the fact that my son's world revolve around his mommy. i am a celebrity in my son's eyes, with all the "mommy" calls he'll make in a day, i doubt if my son would trade me for jollibee or barney... or even for his daddy =D

and yes, he likes to pose in front of the camera and would even ask for "pityur mommy". =D

 

 

 

''we will survive!'

it's our battle cry right now. =D

our househelp cum yaya to iñigo left for good last saturday. i wanted to share with you the whole story on why and how she left but i cannot afford to stay long in front of the computer... naghinhintay pa ang mga tupiin. nyahaha.

but we are on search for her replacement. it's actually three weeks or a month ago when we started but unfortunately, with the good ones flying to $-paying countries, we cannot find someone at par or better (she should be) than the previous maid until now. it's frustrating you know when you ask a friend for a referral and she'd answer you with, "tatlo na kayong nagpapahanap...'' =( to the guys who will be reading this post, i now know the feeling of being busted by the girl you're enamored with. bwahaha! =D

having a househelp is still a necessity for us since, as some of you may know, i still work and i have to devote a few hours every day to attend to it. add to that is the daily regimen for our recently-opened bogzzi sizzling haus, which includes, but definitely not limited to, purchasing of supplies and raw materials, monitoring of operations, and accounting and auditing of sales and expenses. so you can just imagine how i am coping up with all these aside from tending our uber-kulit and likot toddler whose favorite lines these days are "mommy, come!" and "padede"... and doing the house chores. ay, kaloka!

but looking at the glass half-filled, it's during this trying time that we get the satisfaction of being married to the right person. even without saying anything, we can always count on each other to help or make life convenient for the other. all the more that we can say that our marriage is for better or for worse.

we are surviving and i think we can survive longer without much help from other people. we don't know anyway where the tides will bring us so we take problems like this as eternal preparation for the bigger challenges in life--and we have to deal with them all by ourselves to give us room to grow. =)

 

ready to become a kuya

iñigo gives us so much delight these past few weeks. when we thought that he’s still our baby, he’d act otherwise and surprise on how grown-up and smart he is for his age.

 

he is also becoming less dependent to us when it comes to meeting his needs. he prefers to do things on his own and takes initiative whenever he wants something to be done. i am even more proud that he already knows the drill on the simple tasks i usually ask him to do. jude should wince with the fact that his 21-month old knows how to close the doors that he opened or where to put back the things he took. =D

 

below are some of iñigo’s accomplishments. i can't help but share as i am one proud mommy.

 

-         he gets his sippy cup from the dish cabinet if he needs water and puts it back when he’s done. he’d just ask for our assistance if the sippy cup needs to be refilled. the same goes for yakult. he’d get one from the ref, get the other sippy cup (he knows the designation of each cup) from the dish cabinet and just ask us to pour the yakult into it.

-         he eats all by himself, or prefers to eat all by himself. and take note, he has a special requirement recently on how we serve his food. he no longer likes the rice being mashed with the viand in his bowl. it should be how we—the adults—eat. he’d get the rice first from the platter and followed by the viand from the other serving plate.

-         he’d get his own lampin (we differentiated it from the disposable diaper) from his cabinet when we tell him “iñigo, your back is wet” and just hand it to us.

-         if i happen to take off his soiled diaper without any plans of immediately putting on a fresh one, expect he’d run into the room again and take one diaper from his cabinet where it’s stored. he doesn’t like his “birdy” to be exposed believe me. he’d cover it with the hem of his shirt. hahaha.

 

other random facts about our little tot who’s now gearing up to be a kuya (i just felt guilty for my failure to do a roundup of his developments for the past three months or more):

 

-         i couldn’t actually keep track his repertoire of words. but right now, he’s getting familiar with more complicated words like “buiding” for building and “bowdain” for mountain. he even knows some of his favorite foods like “adoboo” (take note it’s spoken with a twang) for adobo and “hayo-hayo” for halo-halo. he loves to eat… that explains. =d

-         he has a knack for dancing (mana sa mommy. hehe). play any upbeat music and he’d move his body. since we regularly watch the noontime show “eat bulaga” he knows by heart the dance steps of “itaktak mo” and “kagat-labi”.

-         on the other hand, iñigo cannot carry a tune (mana talaga sa mommy! haha.)  his lola nonie commented one time why he just did the actions of “twinkle-twinkle…” and “the itsy-bitsy spider” while it’s only i who did the singing. it’s a rare moment that iñigo sings and you wouldn’t say that it’s promising when you hear him. hehe.

-         he’s addicted to mickey mouse! he watches the mickey mouse videos two to three times a day. show him any mickey mouse item and he’d get overly excited. this prompted me to buy him more with mickey mouse designs for his things.

-         and just like the other kids i know, iñigo is also an avid fan of jollibee. i even think iñigo should be credited with the superlative description for a fan as he is ecstatic whenever we are eating in jollibee. and take note, he knows what gas stations along the south luzon expressway have jollibee outlets.

-         unfortunately, iñigo seems to have a fear of “big body of water” such as pools, lakes, and seas. this is really puzzling for us since he already tried to swim in those months back. i am a little alarmed because he would even shudder when he sees them either in pictures or on tv. =(

-         but he is an amiable tot now. he’d usually say “hewo” when he meets someone or “bye” when someone is leaving or getting away from him. i am quite amused that he has this fondness for security guards and he’d wave back to them (with so much gusto as if he’s a moviestar waving to his throng of fans) who are guarding the gate of our parish’s parking area as they usually give us a salute when we leave the premises.

 

there they are... it's what kuya iñigo can and already do at his age. i don't know if he's advanced or behind in terms of development as i don't have a benchmark (or i insist not to have... hehe) but one thing is definite, jude and i are mighty proud of him. =D

 

iñigo the school boy?

i'm looking for some months now for a decent but not-so-pricery toddlers school for iñigo. we tried the little gym in alabang last august but the daddy opined that it's too far from cabuyao and it would be difficult for us to commute during the days that he can't drive me and the little boy. hence, i had to look somewhere else and unfortunately there's none here in cabuyao; at least, decent enough to entrust my son's education. we found a nice one in sta rosa, gymstatics, but luck doesn't seem to be on our side as it was already close when we visited the school months after.

how sad as iñigo seemed to be interested to go to that gym school. just look at the picture which i took out of fancy when we visited gymstatics when it was still open last september.

he was all set to go to school in that picture, right? he was ogling at the kids who were playing inside and i felt that he'd like to play with them. my poor kid! he had no playmates to speak of other than daddy and mommy. =( 

and since that afternoon in gymstatics, the  stage mommy in me has been trying to prep him up for school like getting him some worksheets such as coloring books so he can already hone his hand skills and creativity. look how keen he was on making his first masterpiece.

it's only the classmates and the playmates that's lacking, don't you think?

still part of the labor force

all of you may know that i am a stay-at-home mom since i resigned from my job last may 2007. but the truth is, amspec rehired me two weeks after and offered a part-time/consultancy job with a very flexible work schedule. i accepted the offer and was reporting to the office once to thrice a week, depending on my workload and mood (though the latter prevailed most of the time). you see, my former boss could not live without me… hahaha. she tried to scout for my replacement but no one seems to meet her qualifications. as she have said, ‘there’s only one marie in this world”. the wind is blowing me off from my seat now. =D

 

to some of you who are curious on what i do for a living, i work as an export coordinator for amspec. you should know this company very well because some of their brands are household names like crayola and mongol, “ang lapis ng magaling’… oops, free plugging. =D part of my job is to communicate with the established export clients and also to market amspec products to potential buyers. it’s actually an easy job. the only difficult part for me actually is to coordinate with the production and quality control departments who had nothing to say but it’s difficult, especially when we’re beating ship dates or trying to meet the clients’ specifications. but i refuse to accept their excuses and so verbal battles usually ensue, oh boy! but in the end, they deliver. gusto lang muna kunsumihin ang lola n’yo.

 

but generally, my job is relatively easy. it’s just that i really want to spend more time with my son and also pursue some business endeavors that’s why i decided to quit the job. and for the second time, i resigned last january 31st.

 

but on february 1^st i was rehired again.  though i have yet to see the contract, am already doing my daily tasks thru emails. the arrangement right now is more lenient as i will do my work at home and just report to the office twice or thrice a month and only for a few hours. isn’t that great as i can have the best of both worlds—spending more time with my son and earning at the same time?

 

i’m a little excited over this because it means i can still earn extra money, which I can save to furnish our new house or spend for a major trip which we are eyeing in june.

 

god is really good and i owe this blessing to him.

simple joys of bonding

jude and i promised early this year that we will spare one weekend every month, whether it’s on a saturday or sunday, to treat our son outside the house. may it be in a mall or a park or zoo, it doesn’t matter as long as we, especially our little boy, will have fun. so when jude’s cousin canceled the supposed-to-be errand of them to cavite, we just decided to go out and kill our time inside a mall. after having a sumptuous lunch in paseo de sta. rosa, jude drove us to alabang town center as it already been ages since the last time we went there.

it was a time well spent inside the mall. we let him eat first his favorite food in his favorite fastfood joints--spaghetti of jollibee, what else? =D

after the spaghetti, we walked along ATC's hallways until we reached its rotunda. iñigo was mesmerized by the carousel in the play area and even climbed the gate rails so he can have a better look of the horses, which he kept on signing to tell us he knows how it is being called.

i even let him ride the carousel and he was happy and contented all the time he was sitting in one of the horses. and i was also filled with joy. simple things like this already brings me happiness, especially when i was already filling my tummy with go nuts donuts glaze lite… hay, sarap! as i’ve always said, it’s not on how much we spent but that bring us happiness. it’s that we’re all together and having fun that truly matter.

is there any chance i will own this if ever i get hooked with blogging?

burberry's metal studs warrior bag - price: usd 22k.

i saw this in asian wall street yesterday and damn, i've been dreaming it every hour, every minute, and every second of my breathing time ever since. SIGHS. but of course there's no way i can afford to buy this bag and (trying to be self-righteous) i think it's downright unethical to have a bag as pricey as that when people around me is too impoverished to afford themselves of three square meals a day. talking about the haitians who were in the news the other night. sighs again.

okay... i'm really not here to talk about the bag but on how some of the mommies i know in the newlyweds forum are earning a lot because of paid blogging. some were even claiming they were able to buy a louis vuitton bag out of three-months blogging earnings. goodness gracious, you know how an lv bag can cost... and i'm not going to buy one either. but i can already imagine how many travels we can plan if we only have that extra cash, or savings we can keep in the mutual funds.

the question now is how can i have the time to blog like crazy for me to earn that much...

when i can't even keep this blog long because the little boy is already tugging my shirt now because he wants me to breastfeed him.

more updates on this topic later.

 

 

 

 

 

just like the baby in the movie meet the fockers (iñigo at 18 months series 3)

iñigo's repertoire of words shoot up from eight to more than a dozen (or probably twenty) recently. some of the new words he can speak consistently are:

"ovo" for opo.

"beewb" for bird and his male organ.

"sssst" for butchik, the lizard.

"bwu" for blue, the color.

he's also now a pro in doing some routines, which he learned with a little help from us such as:

- doing the sign of the cross before and after praying

- asking for an elderly's blessing, i.e. "mano po?" as how it's taught to us.

- knocking the door when he sees it close and not just barging in to the room as his yaya does.

and just as i've shared before, iñigo signs a lot to convey his message to us. "fish" and "bathtime" are the newest words he can sign but before that he's already familiar with the sign language for milk, eat, sleep, more, and daddy. 

he's already hungry in this picture:

 

and the favorite sign he loves to use for mommy: milk! (which i avoid to see btw... hehe)

good thing he's already into signing since he's one because i thought before that the seminar fee i paid to learn this will just go down to the drain. haha.

 

i have a patay na kuko, mommy! (iñigo at 18 months series 2)

it happened on the first week of january (way to go to start the new year eh?) when he was yayaless and the mommy was busy doing the dishes. and as usual, the little boy, when up and awake, roamed around the house and made kalikot every thing we have at home. it's the nebulizer apparatus that he took fancy of then (you know how heavy  it can be for a 1.5 y.o.) and apparently he pulled it out from the cabinet where i stored it and since it's heavy for him, down it fell to his foot! OUCH.

grabe, the first and last time i had a patay na kuko was just seven years ago after a major climb and the slope down from the summit of the mountain was really too steep and it's my toes that's working.

but here's my son right now, only 1.5 y.o. and is already nursing a patay na kuko. i can't help but LAUGH. =D

is this art, mommy? (iñigo at 18 months series 1)

the little boy turned 18 months last 8th of january and what a boy, he can be oh so dearest at one moment and switch to his little monster attitude in a split of second. but the beauty of sahmhood, i have more chance to understand my son's behavior, including its peculiarities, and deal with it. i just hope he won't use his "smile armor" more often as the mommy is left defenseless when it was thrown to her. how my heart melts... haha.

the next few blogs i'll be posting here are all about our little boy. time flies so fast when it comes to his development and i feel there's a lot of catching up to do.

for today, i wanted to show you what he did to our wall recently.

i never thought it's this soon that i need to figure out how crayons be wiped off from the wall paint. SIGH.

it's just one of his mischievous (and funny, too) deeds, i tell you.

 

 

totally HELPless

our yaya/househelp is on vacation right now and will be back only this weekend. contrary to what jude and i thought before she left for bicol we can SURVIVE without her. hahaha.

and honestly, i love my jobs right now as full-time yaya to iñigo and chimay of the house. here's why:

1. i have everything done as i wanted--no short-cuts and no misses--everything is covered.

2. i know everything is clean and bacteria-free because it was i who cleaned it. iñigo is safe to roll over the floor because i mopped it 3x.

3. i have more chance to teach my son how he should eat an oreo cookie and sip from his cup... it should be mess-free. =D

but if you'll ask jude what he doesn't like about our current setup:

1. i am stricken with my ka-OC-han again. he's bewildered on how i care so much for that one little speck of dust or strand of hair on the floor. the broom and the mop are my bestfriends these days.

2. he's incessantly reminded of my concerns inside the house and that drives him nuts.

3. he's usually my assistant. hehe.

 

retrospecting year 2007

here we go…

 

yaya matet is on one-week vacation and i am dead tired from doing the household chores and wrestling with a pasaway tot while jude was in the office. it's my only chance to sit down but i wanted to reflect and document on what happened for the year that is about to end and make a roundup of everything that’s worth to remember.

 

the major milestone i can say that happened for this year is that we were able to move out from our abode in malate and transferred here in cabuyao, laguna last april. though we are yet to transfer to our own house by next quarter and we are just renting out a flat right now, i already claimed that this place is now our home for good.  and moving out to live on our own, without any relatives near us, is quite an accomplishment and also a bold act on our part. but i am happy with the fact that we are doing well. oh yeah, jude and i miss the saturday night dates and we watch movies in the afternoon instead so we can be back by 7 pm. one of the tradeoffs but we don’t complain. =)

 

it’s also this 2007 that iñigo turned one and we celebrated it with a party. it turned out great inspite of our meager budget (but jude was saying it’s not meager). it was well-attended too by our relatives and friends and it seemed that everybody enjoyed it  but it was me who was the happiest person on that day as i saw iñigo dancing and clapping and beaming with smiles all throughout. the money and the months of preparation were paid off and i'll be more than glad to prepare another party for him next year.

 

and it’s this year that we traveled a lot. we just made bawi as i was pregnant and just gave birth last year so we’ve only been to two places: cebu-bohol and baguio. but for this year, we’ve been to six—subic and la union last summer; coron, palawan last june; boracay for our 2^nd wedding anniversary; and hong kong and macau last november. i still have yet to write about our recent trips. but among these places it’s definitely la union that i would love to be back for another surfing experience! =D

 

and how can i forget about my shift to sahmhood… =) though i’m still at lost right now on the status of my resignation with my employer and i still render my service once or twice a week and that depends on my mood, the weather, and the traffic… hahaha… i already assumed the role of a stay-at-home mom since may and read this: i have no regrets. it was another bold decision for us as we knew that our household income would be significantly decreased but again we have no regrets. it was also a joint decision. jude and i agreed that someone must spend more time at home with iñigo as we just can’t always leave him with his yaya and more importantly, to give him the proper guidance during his growing-up years.

 

to sum it up, i think this year is the year of major transitions and big leaps for jude and i as couple. our moves and decisions may not be that right but the bottomline for all of these is that we just seek on what’s essentially good for the family. as for the travels… well, it’s in our nature. =)

 

 

the wind is cold... the tree is up... it’s christmas once again! =)

 

hay, and i thought i would be a wet blanket this year’s yuletide season as it was already late november and i wasn’t hit yet by the christmas bug. i was thinking it may be because we were living right now in a place where streets are not as well-lit as makati and manila where we used to live. and no christmas lanterns where hanging in the lamp posts, the downside of being a promdi. hehe. or probably because our christmas tree was not yet up…

 

but that was last week.

 

look what i did last weekend...

 

 

i put it up last saturday--first day of december--and as i have guessed, it made me feel like a kid again! i’m now giddy with excitement over the countless parties and exchange of gifts, and more importantly, the bonding moments we will share with our loved ones, friends included.

 

i just wish iñigo would spare the christmas balls and the other embellishments of the tree. look how busy he is in this picture…

 

 

can you imagine how does the tree looks like right now? horrors! hahaha.

 

jude and i also started with the christmas shopping last weekend and even if it's magastos, i still find gift-hunting a fun task. guess who will have that big kitchen set this christmas from iñigo?

 

(iñigo eagerly posed when he saw me holding a cam.=))

 

 

 

i wonder how we are gonna ship that…. =D

mommy is the most important person in the whole wide world!

wait... my son hasn't told me that yet. although i would love to hear it from him in the next few years and am sure such validation would bring me to tears.

but with how he patiently waits at our front door because he knows its my time to be home,

how he giggles or shrieks with delight when he see me coming out from the gate,

how he hugs me tight and never let go of me,

and how he cries whenever i put him down so i can just change my clothes,

or whenever he see me walking towards the door afraid that he will lose sight of me again,

and how he pouts, by the way, when he sees me in the morning or in the afternoon readying myself to go somewhere,

how he looks at me as if am the prettiest woman in the planet (charing!),

and how he wants to be cuddled only by ME when he's sick or sleepy,

and kiss me on my cheek whenever i ask for it.

gee... if all these are not enough to tell you how much my son loves me...

and how i love being a mother to him. =)