May 2009

Ruy and I were engaged for 2 years before we finally got married. It’s not like it was something we rushed into. We talked and talked and talked a lot before settling down. We attended seminars and read books on marriage and relationships. With that being said, I would have to say that we had absolutely no idea what we were getting ourselves into when we got married.

A lot of people who are thinking of getting married do so with a feeling of invincibility. Yes, they know that a lot of married couples have problems but they also think that they are somehow going to be exempt from these problems. “Oh it’s not going to happen to us cause we respect each other” , “Oh we’re deeply in love and we won’t make those mistakes”…etc, etc, etc. To a certain degree, I too felt that way.

The first 2 years of our married life (at least for me) was a series of reality checks peppered with some rude awakenings.  There were no skeletons in the closet, no huge drama it was just REAL LIFE.

I guess all those disney movies and romantic movies condition you into expecting bells to ring every time you kiss. And when they don’t, you get frustrated and disappointed.

I was frustrated, disappointed, annoyed. You name the negative emotion, I probably felt it. It took me a while before I realized that I was approaching our marriage with a completely wrong mindset. With the help of 2 books (Getting the Love you Want by Dr. Harville Hendrix and 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman) I was able to view my feelings and my relationship with Ruy in a new light.

3 years into our married life and I would have to say that I love Ruy more now than I did when we got married. Each day I’m realizing what a nice person Ruy really is. Nice is such an overused adjective and I’m not sure if it even conveys what I want to say. Basically Ruy is just a good good person and I’m just really blessed that somehow amidst the insanity of my youth, I found someone like him.

My friend Dee left a comment asking about Andrea’s milestones to date. I realized that I haven’t done this in months. I was starting to feel guilty when it dawned on my that I have excuses err reasons for not doing so.

First, the milestones for Andrea’s age are more abstract and less ‘tangible’. It’s harder to actually point them out. Next, I’ve stopped caring so much. I have listed down my goals for Andrea and being advanced is not one of them. My goals are for her to feel secure, feel loved, well-adjusted, simple (not materialistic) and happy. I have focused so much on these that I’ve practically forgotten to think about her milestones. I have read several times that kids who were advanced as kids did not exactly have higher iQs than those who were considered delayed. Lastly, I only check for her delays now. Why? Because if she has any developmental delay it’s the best time to have it checked and to have therapy.

The purpose of this blog though is to make sure Andrea can also read about her development when she grows up. (Oh and also to learn how insanely in love her parents are over her) So I will try to document Andrea’s most recent milestones now.

1. She converses well. Although it seems it’s only Yaya and I who can understand her 98% of the time. She speaks in sentences sans the articles and the prepositions.  For example “Man carry baby”. 
2. She still refers to herself in the 3rd person. “Give Andea purple crayon”
3. She knows all the colors, all the letters, knows how to count in English and Spanish. Can name the planets and can label the pictures of the planets.
4. Her gross motor skills are great. She can climb up and down the stairs. She can hoist herself up 8 steps on a vertical ladder. She can hang on the monkey bar for around 3 seconds.
5. She is daring when she is with me, Ruy and the yaya. But clams up when there are other people there.
6. She shows restraint already. She understands when you ask her to wait. She understand when you say no. (I think this is the best development ever).
7. Fine motor skills are not as good. She can use the fork for soft solid objects. She can put coins through the tiny slot of her coin box. She can’t button or zip yet.
8. She understands the concept of making a decision. I am terribly excited about this and teaching her has not been easy. I started out making her choose 1 minute clips to watch. Then she is ‘forced’ to sit through the show she chose even if she changes her mind in the middle. The shows grew longer to 6-7 minutes. Until now she chooses movies she wants to watch and sits through her choice for 2 hours. (In the past, when she would change her mind I would tell her. Okay, you can watch that AFTER you finish this show)
9. Pretend play is more active now. She loves plastic toy animals and makes them “eat” “ride the boat” “sleep” “dance”, etc.  She once put her plastic circle on her head and started running around saying she’s an Angel who’s flying.
10. She has mastered doing #2 in her potty (she started this quite early). I love seeing her sad face every time she says “Mommy poo poo”. I don’t know why she looks sad.
11. She still doesn’t use the past tense.
12. Has the funniest exclamations. “Oh no!” “Oh boy!” “Oh man” “Nice!”"Alright!” She doesn’t always use them correctly too!
13. She follows directions like “Get the box, it’s on top of the red doll”
14. Is extremely curious about glasses and mirrors. She would spend minutes in front of them, put her hands on the other side and get all confused.
15. She’s become a bit more patient with reading. Although she prefers pointing out things over listening to the story.
16. She somehow finds her nighttime prayer funny. She would be giggling everytime we get to “Amen”

Got this from babycenter.com. Here’s a list of the things 2 year olds generally are able to do.

Point to an object that you name.

Recognize the names of familiar people, objects, and body parts.

Use short phrases and two- to four-word sentences.

Follow simple instructions.

Repeat words he overhears.

Find an object even if you hide it under two or three blankets.

Sort objects by shape or color. –> not yet. I tried guiding her but she’s not interested at all

Play make-believe.

So there you go, these are her milestones. I think it would take me another 6 months before I post the next one. Ciao!

2 nights ago Andrea asked to be put on her high chair so she can color her books. I carried her to the chair, zipped her up and sat on the sofa.

I was watching her from across the room when I realized that her foot goes way beyond the foot rest of the highchair and her head extends way beyond the back rest. Andrea looked terribly out of place in that baby apparatus. I can deny it all I want but I know that she is slowly becoming a little girl.

I felt a bit panicky upon this realization. I have mastered the art of being a mother to baby Andrea but I’m not sure I know what it means to be a mother to a little girl. I don’t know if I know how, I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if I’m ready.

I am 26 years old. What business do I have raising a little girl? I’m practically still a little girl and God knows I still haven’t learned all the lessons I should have learned from my childhood.

I used to console my fears about motherhood by saying that there are so many stupid people out there who are able to raise kids, I should be able to do the same. The problem is I don’t want to raise Andrea like a stupid person would. I am not satisfied with just barely raising her. I want to raise her with values, with morals, with faith. How do I do that when I’m not even sure how much of those things I have (if any at all?).

I’m scared. I don’t know if I’m the best person for this job, problem is I am the only person for this job.

Songs play an important part in my life believe it or not. I am not very picky when it comes to songs. I just like songs with lyrics I can relate to…that’s it. I don’t care about the genre or the nuances…just give me words.

Let me talk about some things related to songs:

• Do you remember the song Never Ever? It was sung by All Saints sometime in the 90s. There’s a short monologue which goes like this “A few questions that I need to know, how you could ever hurt me so?….”. Somehow, everytime I sing this I find myself doing so in my awful British accent. It’s horribly embarrassing.
• You would know how my work day was when you listen to the songs playing while I drive home.
• When I’m terribly stressed I belt out to U2 Elevation while driving.
• I used to hate country but now love Carrie Underwood.
• I have this annoying habit of singing sentences. For example instead of saying “I love you Andrea” I sing it. My baby sister used to find it so annoying.

I have this boxed set of Winsor Pilates DVDs from years and years ago. Sad to say they’ve barely been used.

Last week, I decided to give it a try once again. Hooboy, I had no idea I was this out of shape. I was practically in tears by the 15th minute. It was torture! That scared me. I used to be extremely flexible and now I can barely do the basic pilates movements. This motivated me to do it again, and again.

I’m going to try this for one month and see what happens. I’m really trying to delay having to buy the best diet pills out there. I would rather go the natural route first. Even if that route hurts like hell

I don’t know why trips stress me out but they just do. We have an upcoming Cebu Trip with Andrea in August and I am already stressed out right now. I already know I can’t bring my sterilizer so I have been looking at disposable Avent bottles (Avent Tempo looks really good) now my problem is how do I sterilize the nipples? I know there are sterilizing tablets out there but I really feel uncomfortable about having Andrea use nipples which have been soaked in a tablet filled with chemicals…I don’t care whatever chemicals those are.

How do people travel with babies? What do you feed the kids? Are they going to be eating at fast food places all week? Am I supposed to bring mineral water with me? I know Cebu has groceries and all but what if we don’t get to go during the first day or so?

All these decisions just for a 5-day cebu trip. Can you imagine how I’d be if I were planning month-long Orlando vacations? I’d probably have to be institutionlized already!

“Don’t act the way you feel, act the way you want to feel!”

I came across that wonderful saying in one of the blogs I stalk (hehehe, I have stalking tendencies) and I completely agree with it…in theory. I tried practising that last weekend and I was successful for the most part. My weekend was 90% wonderful because of it.

It’s a lot easier said that done though. I found myself lying in bed pissed and trying so hard to tell myself…act the way you want to feel, act the way you want to feel. I was able to calm down a bit but it took me a full night’s sleep before I got over it completely.

Yesterday my yaya proudly told me that Andrea can name and label the planets. Can you believe that? I can’t even do that! The funny thing is she can’t pronounce the names of the planets, they all get bastardized somehow. Neptune becomes Nyeknyun and Venus becomes Veyon, you get the idea.

While I was about to park my car last night, we were watching the yaya open the gate and Andrea suddenly shouted “Abre! Open the gate” I laughed so loudly I think I scared her a bit.

When we went down she looked up and saw the stars. She said “stars!” and then she said “Mommy count the stars!”. I wanted to say “Okay Andrea, I will count the stars and you make a presentation about Total Merchant Services. How about that?” Geeesh.

It’s funny how much faith our kids have in us. They think we can do anything and everything. I’m kinda scared of facing her when she realizes that mommy can’t do everything, and that mommy makes mistakes too (lots of them). Haaay, I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.

Warning: This post will have the word Awesome in it more times than any surfing movie out there. More than Dumb and Dumber and Dude, Where’s My Car?  combined. If you can’t stand that, get out of my site.

Okay so let’s start with the main point. Ruy is an awesome person. The more I stay with him the more I realize what a genuinely nice guy he is. He’s just plain awesome.  I know he’s not perfect and he has his flaws but I really think I would be hard pressed to find another guy who matches me as well as his personality and quirks do.

Case in point. I threw a tantrum last Monday. Why? Cause I was PMS-ing and I have been hungry for some quiet conversation about meaningful things with anyone and I didn’t have anyone to talk to during that period. I was grumpy the whole night. The next day he took me out on a date so “We can just take a break and be together”…awwwwwww. That’s a capital AWWW for AWWWWESOME!

So how was the date? Well, I’m surprised you even asked. It was awesome of course! First he made reservations. That’s a HUGE deal for me. I like thinking that he really prepared for this and thought about it. That makes me feel special. =) Then he chose a resto with a great ambiance and  even greater food.

When we got there, he was all “gentlemanly” in the most OA way I had to hide my snorts of laughter. He tried to help me down the car with a slight bow while saying “After you my lady” who the hell will not snort after that? 

One thing that annoys me about Ruy is the amount of time he spends texting. I know it’s part of his job but I sometimes get frustrated by the frequency of texts. You know what he did during our date? He said he’s not going to text that night. And he didn’t! He didn’t even look at his phone the whole night! Isn’t that so, hmmm what’s that word again? AWESOME!

He had nothing to do with the food but if you know me you would know that food is my weakness. I’m not talking quantity here, I’m talking about quality. I mean moan-inducing food. The kind that would make you close your eyes because it’s just so good. That’s the kind we had. Which of course made me think that Ruy was …AWESOME.

That date aside the best thing I love about Ruy is how he is with Andrea. I love it when I see Andrea giggling and getting excited when they’re playing. I like how he deals with people, how nice he is with everyone. I love how I know that if anything happened to me then I’m sure Andrea will never need for love. I also love that I always always feel like his number one priority no matter what. Doesn’t that just make him awesome?

Naiyak ako sa inis sa pagbabasa nito. Ano na ang nangyayari sa Pilipinas?

Cheche has been charged for wiretapping by GSIS, when her Probe Team tried to do a story on unfair compensation practices. Cheche had explicitly told GSIS that she was recording their conversation beforehand. She had offered them all the airtime to present their side of the story. In the end, because the story was negative, GSIS chose to charge her with wire-tapping.

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Cheche Lazaro’s Statement
May 8, 2009

It is mind-boggling why I am being singled out for prosecution for following the tenets of responsible journalism. If raising the concerns of underpaid public school teachers deprived of their benefits by a publicly accountable government institution and giving my accuser the airtime to explain her boss’s side of the story are now considered crimes under our laws, then I plead guilty.

This is a small price to pay for bringing a perfectly legitimate public interest issue out in the open. Probe will not be intimidated into submission. I just wish my accuser will play fair and hire private lawyers instead of using government lawyers (from the GSIS), whose salaries are incidentally paid for by, among others, the teachers shortchanged by the questionable policy of the GSIS and private citizens like me who pay taxes.

In the last 22 years, Probe has carved a niche in the industry and won recognition here and abroad for consistently adhering to time-honored journalistic values of accuracy, fairness and objectivity. My team and I have no plans of changing the way we work just to accommodate the personal agenda of people in power.

That is not what a baby looks like. That is a little girl right there.
(This was taken 2 months ago, she has lost a bit of weight since then. She has also grown a bit taller)

My mom expressed her surprise at how talkative Andrea is. You see while playing she keeps on talking about what she’s doing and what’s happening. She does the same while watching TV. She tries to talk to whoever is taking care of her and tells that person whatever is going to happen with Dora or Blues Clues.

The funny thing about her is that she gets seriously excited as she tries to tell us what will happen before they happen. When we don’t understand what she’s trying to say she would repeat it around 3 times. Then if it still fails she will try to find another way of saying it. I actually love how interactive this baby has become.

My mom said that she understand how she can be so talkative when both Ruy and I are so quiet. (no, there’s no need for ancestry dna testing just yet. we’re certain she’s ours) I am quite surprised that she finds my quiet I have never seen myself as quiet.

This is not the first time I’ve been called quiet too. My lola’s sister has called me the woman with a few words. I was also considered quiet at work. I almost burst out laughing when I realized that the reason I don’t find myself quiet is cause I have conversations with myself all the time. hahaha. PSYCHO!

Sorry for the delay. My mother’s day weekend was crazy and I didn’t really have much time to update this blog in between the food preparations, shopping, etc.

Let me talk about my mom. I very rarely mention my mom in this blog. I really don’t have any reason not to, I guess I just have this image of my mom as a very private person.

Ruy just reminded me a few weeks ago about how lucky I am with my mom. I thought hard and I realized that yeah, my mom’s pretty cool. Here’s some trivia about my mom.

• She would take me to bars at 8 yrs old.
• She let me drink wine at around 13…it was just there at home all the time. It made me not so excited to get drunk at parties (unlike my classmates).
• She told me that I had to have my gums coterized (burnt) to make it smaller, if I didn’t want to do that I better practise smiling properly. I did! My smile now does not show my gums anymore despite my tiny teeth.
• She’s a dentist and when her patients are her relatives she goes crazy…she obsesses over our whiteheads and blackheads. She wants to remove those too.
• She still finds it hard to get used to having 2 daughters. When she goes to the grocery she only remembers to buy for one of us.
• She has this constant urge to help everyone. I don’t know why.
• She gets into the most insane conversations with beggars, gas attendants, etc. For example during the Edsa Dos period she would provoke reactions by asking beggars “Kawawa naman si Erap ano?” (she was anti-Erap ah) and then the beggars would start professing their support for Erap.
• She has charity days when all she does is work on the teeth of maids, drivers, guards, janitors, etc.
• She gets urges in the most insane hours. She once stood up at 3am to fix her cabinet. The scary part? I find myself with the same urges.
• She EATS A LOT! The only reason why she doesn’t gain weight is because she exercises around 2-3 hours a day.
• She used to have a dance called the Spider Dance. It’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. Her arms would be flailing up and down…she would be running around the room and her head is bobbing from side to side. She can’t dance…but she belly dances. I don’t know how she managed to do that.
• She has such a low voice. We all sound alike over the phone though. My grandmother can’t tell us apart. I have a higher pitched version than she does.
• She didn’t know I could speak in English till I was around 11. I refused to speak in English till I was 11.
• She has a cyclical style. She goes from hippie, 70s, classic, trendy, missionary look. She’s currently in her missionary look. I HATE IT. I feel like it’s a waste of all of God’s gifts for her. That’s why I bought her a dress for mother’s day.
• She has the worst pose when she knows her picture is being taken. That’s why she doesn’t look as pretty in pictures. I took the picture above was taken without her knowledge, she was not able to pose that’s why she looks nice. Hahahah.
• She gave me a huge make-up kit when I was 11. All my friends were green with envy. Their moms wouldn’t even let them wear lip glosses and my mom gave me make-up!
• She got me addicted to hair colors. She told me that my features are so dark that I need lighter hair to make myself look nicer.
• She can cook, but she forgets her recipes. Up to know I’m still craving for the stuffed bell pepper she cooked when I was in high school. She claims never to have cooked such a thing. AAAARRRRRGGGGHHH.
• She would take me with her when she would go out with friends. She would also take me with her when she would go to classes. This probably explain why I’m more comfortable with older people than people my age.
• She is unlike all normal mothers…trust me. Yet she is motherly in her own unique way.
• She is one of the strongest people (not physically ah) I know.
• I don’t look like her.
• I hate how I didn’t get her height, her color, her built. I’m happy I didn’t get her hair…hahaha
• I think she’s an awesome dentist cause she’s so artistic. She also is very gentle and very clean. I have tried some of her colleagues and I swear my mom’s awesome.
• Her mind never stops churning out to do lists for everyone around her.  She somehow hates seeing other people idle…
• She can sleep and eat all day.

So that’s my mom!

There are only a handful of people who I love so much that they can annoy me to death. My grandmother is one of them.

She drives me crazy sometimes that I have literally had to shout inside my car to let off steam. Yet I still love her to pieces.

She’s annoying. She’s makulit. She turns every one’s business into her own. She loves tsismis and she’s the epitome of a housewife if ever there is one. She has devoted her entire life to her family and boy is she ever protective of it.

Here are some fun trivia about my grandmother:

• She calls my grandfather “native” because he’s not tisoy like her family.
• She knows what’s inside the refrigerator of my in laws.
• She calls Diego (the cousin of Dora) Rico
• She was such a pampered wife that my grandfather would wipe mud off her legs when they had to walk on the streets…
• She and her sisters claim that they used to stop traffic with their looks. We think it’s cause they don’t know how to cross the street.
• She loves her blood family so much. ONLY HER BLOOD FAMILY. She insists on having family pictures without the in laws. (yes, even those who’ve been married into the family for over 40 years)
• She was so loved by my grandfather and so spoiled that she thinks all our husbands cannot compare to my grand father.
• She has been watching Dora regularly and asked me the life changing question “Kumukurap ba si Dora”
• She works on crossword puzzles and sudoku all day long.
• She’s still being spoiled by her children and grandchildren.
• Her memory is so much better than mine.
• She gets sad when she’s Andrea’s empty playpen during the weekends.
• I don’t know why but she seems uncharacteristically fond of Ruy.
• She didn’t talk to me for almost a month after I got married. This is considering that I was engaged for almost 2 years na ha!
• She is stubborn as a mule. When push comes to shove her argument is “Ah basta”…how the hell do you win against that?
• Her happiness lies in having her family all around her.

Mother’s Day is coming up and I thought I’d talk about my mothers. I have 3 amazing women in my life who have acted as mothers in their own ways and I thought I’d feature them one at a time.

Let’s start with my Abap.

Her name has an interesting story. VERY INTERESTING. Her name was supposed to be Maria Victoria, that was her name in her birth certificate I believe. She wasn’t allowed to be baptized by the church under that name cause it’s not a name found in the bible or the name of a saint. So she was named Rebecca instead. Her friends called her Rebecca she was called Marivic at home. Until she changed her name to Gretchen…just because.

We cousins would call her Tita Vic. As a child I couldn’t say that name and ended up calling her Ta Bip. Her name to me became Ta Bip. Then when my sister was born a few years ago she couldn’t say Ta Bip as well…so her name became Abap.

The woman with a dozen names. =)

She is the most motherly person I know. When she was in college she would commute all the way to my pre-school just to see me. We lived in the same house most of my life and she pampered me like there was no tomorrow. I would have to say that I was spoiled to some extent but I sure as hell was afraid of her.   I wasn’t the only one, even my high school friends were scared of her.

She was probably the person who was most present in my life growing up. She taught me how to read (complete with a pencil hitting if I may add), she tried reading to me every afternoon when I was a toddler (she would often fall asleep though), she took me to ballet lessons, she attended my PTAs. She basically did everything you could think off. She didn’t stop even when I was already a teenager. She would talk to all my high school teachers EVERY SINGLE QUARTER. Can you believe that?

She is the most nurturing and generous person I know.  Here’s a picture of her with my little sister. She’s also the one in black in the other photo. (Oh, she’s Andrea’s Ninang as well!!)

Guess what happened to me today? I was on my way to work, I boarded the elevator, reached the floor where I was supposed to exit and then the elevator doors won’t open. Then, the elevator descended oh so slowly.

There I was stuck in an elevator jam packed with people (without any fans or a/c if I may add) and getting more and more annoyed. Do you know what makes this doubly annoying? The fact that this happened to me exactly a week ago as well.

I don’t understand why a building with lots of corporate clients can’t find the budget for decent industrial equipment.

Carrie Underwood croons about remembering to remember. Unfortunately for me, remembering is easier said than done. I don’t know what is it with me that makes me forget EVERYTHING except conversations and life stories.

It seems as if I have a micro sd card specifically for life stories and conversations. I can’t remember what I ate last week but I can tell you about a conversation with my boss from 4 years ago.

Weird huh?

=)

It’s embarrassing to admit that I often have to have people remind me just how lucky I am to have the people in my life.

People constantly tell me how lucky I am with Ruy.
Ruy had to remind me a few weeks back just how lucky I am with my mom.

I guess it’s human nature to assume that the grass is greener elsewhere and not to notice that not only is the grass on my side green, it even has flowers. =)

Every morning I find myself having to fend off motorists who are a tad too aggressive when it comes to maneuvering their bikes. I don’t understand why they’re so confident, don’t they realize how tiny they are compared to every other vehicle on the road? Don’t they know they’re relatively unprotected out there and most accidents would result to their death?

It’s not like it would matter whose fault it was if they died. The sympathy would always be on their side cause they would be the ones with major injuries. They don’t even need a good motorcycle accident attorneys, all they need is a medico legal to state their injuries and voila the innocent driver (aka me) will be the one paying damages.

This happened to me 2 years ago. I was stopped when suddenly a motorcycle came sliding down the road and it got wedged between my car and the floor. Guess who had to pay? ME! Grrrr…