January 31, 2008

I know I know I’ve been gushing about Andrea but I really want to document everything that’s happening to her just so I can look at it next year and remember all these wonderful times.

Since the last time I posted, here are Andrea’s new tricks:

- Correctly points at the following in a book: Baby, Lady Bug, Colors Blue, Green, Yellow and Red

- Touches the correct body parts when you sing Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes…except for the shoulders which she somehow can’t reach.

- Kisses (in her own way, which usually means putting her face near you and with her mouth open…teaching your cheeks)

-Embraces

- Follows simple instructions like: Say Bye, Say Hi, Look up, Jump, Kick, Spank, Hug, Kiss, Dance

- Can correctly find the following: All our maids at home, Nani (my grandmother), Gramma (my mother), Lola (my mother in law), Papa (my dad), Kuya Gabby (her cousin), Barney and Doggie, her balloon and lastly the moon.

- Her spoken vocab consists of: di-bug (lady bug), bu (blue), e-low (yellow), dadi or dada (for Daddy), la yu (for love you)

Wow….now I’m sad…she’s really not a baby any more.

In the Philippines, we are paid twice a month. Payday falls on the 15th and the 30th for most companies, it is not the case for us. Our payday is on the 5th and on the 20th and this usually works out fine but during this pay period, the wait in between paydays is just too long.
The last payday which was January 20 fell on a Sunday so our salary was given on the 18th. Meaning, we had to stretch the salary to go for 18 days and 3 weekends. This is no easy feat I’m telling you. I can already hear people complaining within the company, it’s gotten so bad that people are refusing to drink this coming weekend.
I am still so grateful that despite my complaining, I don’t have to avail of any of the payday loans just yet. While I know that there’s nothing wrong with taking advantage of payday loans (in fact payday loans are very helpful) I would rather exhaust all means possible before taking out a loan. Thank goodness to the budget Ruy and I started this year. It allowed me to stretch my salary for a longer period of time even with the gifts for my nephews and my sister who are all celebrating their birthdays this week.

It’s also a relief knowing just how accessible these loans are (some are already available online) just in case I would ever need them.

I want to share with you a Great Discovery: Zenni Optical, what is this you may ask? It’s an online optical shop which offers affordable and fashionable glasses for you and your loved ones. It’s the only place where you can find the Zenni Optical $8 Rx Glasses, is there any better value than that? Trust me I’ve looked and looked and the Best Thing Found: Zenni Optical … yup you can’t get this deal elsewhere.

Pregnancy becomes her. Yup, I’ve heard this comment one too many time when I was pregnant. You know what? I actually agree as well! I would have to say that I was one hot pregnant woman.

I felt good physically. I would often skip and hop in the office (much to the detriment of the nerves of the people around me who would practically have a heart attack whenever they’d see pregnant old me jumping around).

One thing I hated about being pregnant was all the unsolicited advice which would sometimes get ridiculous. I’ve learned the art of smiling and pretending to listen while the oldies gave me their words of wisdom. (Okay, I’d be honest…I wasn’t really smiling all the time)

I wish I had paid more attention to some of their advice though. For example, I should have listened when they told me to put on any stretch mark cream in order for me to prevent stretch marks. I didn’t listen to them before as I didn’t see the need to put on a cream when there wasn’t any mark on my tummy. It felt a but paranoid to do so. Had I known then what I knew now (seeing how ugly my stretch marks are), I would have piled on the revitol stretch mark cream when I had the chance.

Oh well, hindsight is always 20/20/