While Frank Wreaked Havoc
... I baked cookies and cupcakes with my in-laws.




Unbaked black and white cookies


Cupcakes with cream cheese frosting


We've decided we'd just bake the cupcakes for Yakee's birthday. It would be another really personal touch. Thank goodness for MIL's commercial-size oven and SIL's weird obsession with baking, chopping, etc.

We baked around 60 cupcakes and two batches of cookies... and generally ate them all up over the weekend as we were locked in by the rains. I also realized that we can't be too careful with ingredients, esply in baking. But it was really fun to decorate your cookies and up the sugar ante all you want.

Of Movements and Moving
Last year this month, I was six months pregnant and worried already that I still haven't really felt my baby moving. And then he moved for the first time while Pappie was holding my tummy. :)

In retrospect, it must be the high level of amniotic fluid that prevented me from 'feeling' him earlier.

Anyway, now we need not worry anymore about him moving. He is actually moving too much. Where else can you see a baby actually enjoying playing on the treadmill?

He crawls up it, or he walks while bending and supporting his weight with his hands. He loves sliding down it too. Soon, I expect Yakee to use the arm supports as monkey bars as well.

And yes, he already crawls up the stairs without needing support (so yes, woe to the one following his progress up the steps).

Half a dozen times during the night, I have to set him right beside me because he tends to orbit around his (and Pappie's) space.

And he flatly refuses cushions, mattresses and mats (what more, his pen) and insists on crawling on the floor, and playing on it.

He also likes being pushed in his play car.

No wonder he's not getting fat despite the increased appetite.

Our kid is growing too fast, and moving away from us so fast as he explores his world... and yet, he's also moving all the more closer to us, his parents, his family, as he re-introduces the world's beauty and promise to us.

Belt Tightening
Belt tightening is something we need to be doing.

It's not that hubs is earning little. He's earning enough. But we still haven't really limited ourselves to a budget, and so, there are often these impulsive buys to make each other feel good and what-not, we end up with no savings at all.

I asked hubby not to feel sad about the money he's bringing in, but to feel sad that he and I aren't spending it more wisely.

So now, we begin anew. I hope to take a leaf from my fellow n@wies who made calculators at groceries their best friend.

*~*

Oh and may I just say... hubs enjoyed his Father's Day celebration :)

Pappie, is it alright?

Is it alright, Pappie
do you mind
that I made you the way you are?
more lacking in sleep
and rest now
more pressured to provide?
with less time for yourself
and more fears in your heart
I took away your peace of mind,
and insist on play
and demand attention
in the dead of night.

Is it alright, Pappie
do you mind
me making you
the way you are?
more tired than ever
and overly preoccupied
with my health
my well-being
that I may never feel deprived
with all your plans
considering
and affecting little me
and your arms and back
go aching
till I sleep eventually.

There are so many things
I still don't know how to do
i'm still learning
still growing
still dependent on you
and ahead are more days
and weeks and years
of me testing you
your temper
your patience
your belief in God too.

So, Pappie, is it alright?
do you mind?
that I made a father out of you?
If it's any consolation
Mommy says
she's never been
more in love with you
and that she wants me growing up
and taking after you
to be as gentle, as kind
as loving and true.

I still cannot say it yet,
Pappie
how much I love you so
in the meantime
when I smile
and get a twinkle in my eye
know i'm telling you
you're my hero.



Happy Father's Day Mahal! And in case you need to be reminded of how far you've come, and how much farther still you have to as Pappie...

Mommy Needs Avenging
Yakee bit me. On the arm! Real bad! Bad enough to leave teeth marks! Bad enough to get red. And now to look bruised.

I'm just waiting for Pappie to defend me and avenge me on our son. Sniff. Maybe I should really find a support group for abused Moms.

Sniff.

*~*

Yakee reminds me of Boo (from Monsters, Inc.) very much... or some pet that you feed. I seldom let him hold his cookies anymore because they just end up crumbly and all over the place, so I just snap them into chewable pieces and feed them to Yakee. And my son will allow himself to be left in his pen to play by himself so long as I pop food and water in his mouth, much like Boo getting thrown biscuits to stay happy.

After our Pampanga trip, he also just insists on being fed all the time. I'm still trying to gauge though if his milk intake has dropped or not... but he insists on still nursing after every meal. Let's just hope it's not just him using me as a human teether.

Now, back to being avenged.

If truth be told, am sure the little tyke will just receive a hundred more kisses from his father for biting me. Tsk!

Then again, I showered him with kisses myself after the incident. So yikes, I know, i'm his co-dependent!

Sharing the Love
Received this award from Mhay and Jammy... and I cannot help but pass it on forward because I can imagine just how important it is to the Mom whose son was saved by a heart donor.

So, here are the rules Crystal gave:

"The rules of this award are: SHARE THE LOVE!!! Share this award with all those blogs out there that you love. All the people who make you smile. All those that make you laugh. All those that make your day. All those that leave uplifting comments on your blog. **All I ask, is that you include a link to this post with the award and ask your recipient to do the same**

As you may have recently seen on my side bar, I have finally created a custom blog award!! I have wanted to do this for a long time but never came up with something that "fit". I didn’t want just anything. It had to be something that meant something to me. And what could mean more than Sharing the Love by giving you pieces of my heart??

So I created this award in Honor Of The Donor That Saved Noah’s Life. I share this award with those of you whose love and friendship have enriched my life and made my world a better place.

I hope by passing this award around the blogging world we can all help raise awareness of the need for Organ Donation."


So now i'm passing the award to other fellow Moms... Nice, Laya, Salen and Petra :)

*~*

Oh... did you guys like Kung Fu Panda?

Do We Take After Our Parents?
Official entry to the Pinoy Parenting Blog Carnival.

There are so many things our parents did right. Like valuing honest pay for honest work. And believing in God. And being mindful of elders. Valuing education.. Being observant of traditions.

But hubs and I have agreed already that there's a lot of room for improvement as to how those things were inspired in us. So we intend to really have constant dialogues with our kids. And I will be a SAHM to be there for the kids, and not to be the family shopper, cook, gardener, laundry lady. And I will not stagnate as a person, and my husband will not have more say in family matters just because he's the one earning more.

Hopefully, we will not resort to violence, whether by spanking or verbal abuse, in disciplining our children. But we will discipline the best we know how. And we alone will qualify certain things about our family, like what spoiling or depriving our kids will entail. Not our parents. Not our friends. Certainly not our enemies and faceless strangers.

Hubs and I hope to someday own properties, just like our parents. But we'd rather invest in the present family bonding times than on a future enjoyment that isn't assured.

And we'd rather indoctrinate our children to do good by example, not because we told them to.

But most of all, hubs and I vow to continue loving each other and be more concerned about keeping our relationship thriving. Because we want to remain in love. And we want to be happier in our marriage ten, twenty, fifty years from now. Because parenting will be a lot easier when the kids see truly united, happy parents.

Eight is Infinity
Our darling Yakee turned eight months last Saturday. It was the first time he didn't have a cake with his noodles but that's okay, we still had a feast anyway. Nothing he could eat, however. But we did give him some wheat bread, hehe. And apple juice.

At eight months, he has four teeth and stands up all the time on his own. We stopped letting him use the walker because it results in more chaos at home, we just let him crawl all over the place instead. Mind you, he still wreaks a lot of havoc that way. We still don't know what he loves to eat because it seems he keeps changing his mind. One day he'd like pasta so much, the next day he'd keep gagging on it. He loves sayote, at least.

He babbles a lot... doesn't really talk yet but mostly associates ma-me-mi sounds to me, pa-pe-pi and ba-be-bi sounds to his Pappie, and da-de-di sounds to nursing. He's also just recently realized he can close-open his hands at will. It's real funny watching him watch his own hands closing and opening.

He is more demanding of me. And he already knows the people in his life and would sometimes be a sorry sight, crying over me, my cousin and Pappie at the same time. As if he wants all of us to stay put in one place, whoever goes results in whimpers from him. Not that he's turned into a crybaby.

He's also settled into a sleeping routine. He starts crying at around 9 PM and he has to be bathed and nursing within 15 minutes of that, otherwise, he'd have a harder time settling down.

He still doesn't prefer any one toy. Talk about short attention span. And, like many babies before him, he actually prefers pots and pans and bowls and spoons over his actual toys. He absolutely loves the Kung Fu Fighting MTV (for the Kung Fu Panda movie). And shampoo commercials.

He still hates wearing shoes.


with the birthday lunch


with cousin Ice


with cousin Iya at Fontana


Hubs and I are amazed at how quickly time has flown... before, we couldn't imagine how we'd get through the nighttime squalling, but now, our boy is as interactive and demanding as could be. When he wants something that's taken away from him, he growls at us. When he's really intent though, he goes after us with a chomp.

And his smile is still the most beautiful thing God had ever thought to create.

Ten Random Things About Hubs (Pappie Jojo)
I was tagged by Sujee and Kathy but since i've already done this tag before, I decided to just modify it... and seeing as it's Father's Month this June, i'd just exploit all I know about hubs instead. :D

1) Baby Jojo is the eldest of five kids. Their youngest (Luis) is thirteen years old and he shares his birthday with our son. Hubs took care of all his siblings.

2) He is a technical manager at Jebsen & Jessen. Their clients are mostly banks and call centers. Their company sells, installs, maintains VOIP and telephony systems.

3) He is a gadget freak. If he can have his way, he'd have been tinkering with an Astone something right now (that Asus eee competition that's also a tablet PC?).

4) He sort of collects laptop bags! And he refuse to throw any away even if he isn't using them anymore.

5) He can't read books in paper form anymore. They all have to be in .pdf form and he reads from his PDA.

6) He'd prefer sleeping over eating anytime (I'm the opposite).

7) Top fave foods: barbecues, sandwiches and pasta. I don't like barbecues but I love making sanwich spreads, which he really appreciates.

8) When he was still a baby, he woke up his aunt by suckling on her toe. Just a month ago, Yakee gnawed on my foot. Yeah, my son takes after him.

9) He was a very well-behaved boy. His Mom says that you can leave him in a corner and trust him to remain there. He preferred tinkering with things over playing and fooling around.

10) He adores his Mom, his maternal grandma, and me. And of course, he is in love with our son.



I am not tagging anyone anymore.... but feel free to pick this modivied version up and honor your husbands :)

Family Vacation Plans
Like what i've mentioned before, I seem to be spending more time planning a family vacation for December instead of my son's first birthday in October. I can't help it, we just really had a great time in Baguio last May. Travelling may be expensive (or require some cost) but it just really has a special way of really making a family more of one.

We have three choices really. To revisit a place we've been to already in the country. To go someplace new in the country. Or to go abroad, to another Asian country.

Of course, we'd be limited by a budget and intend to travel with discounted rates offered by Philippine Airlines or Cebu Pacific. But we also wanted to take advantage of the fact that Yakee can still ride planes relatively free (till he turns two, for most airlines).

Revisiting a place we've been to already (by 'we' meaning Jojo and I together) meant revisiting Boracay, Palawan or Davao.

Going someplace new, however, meant that we could travel North (Laoag for Vigan or Batanes even) or as South as we want (Zamboanga!). We considered Bohol as well because of all its old Churches.

And travelling to another Asian country meant we could go to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia (hotelscombined.com lists 32 accommodation options, and we could actually choose to be un-fussy about it and stay at Borneo Global Backpackers Hotel Kota Kinabalu), or going to see the Olympic structures built in Beijing (albeit two to three months after the Games), or going to either Singapore or HongKong.

I told hubs i'd rather go to HongKong than Singapore because it's a cheaper place in terms of everything, and we'd get more out of our money by going someplace cheap. But our son is still too young to appreciate Disneyland anyway (plus, they're building a bigger one over in China). And we aren't really sure what to do in Kota. So we decided that we'd stick to the Philippines for the meantime.

Hubs didn't want us revisiting the places we've been to already this soon, especially when you consider the fact that Yakee will still be too young to really enjoy feeding the fish or go banana boating or appreciate who Pag-Asa is.

So okay, new place to see this time. Going to Batanes in December doesn't seem like a good idea since it's always turbulent there at best. Plus, Seair flights aren't really cheap, something we've discovered when we flew to El Nido before. We'd really love to go to Vigan but I didn't like the fact that we'd need to do some land trip too from Laoag. I know, we're after the least hassle possible. So we've decided we're going to Dipolog instead. Dipolog is several minutes away from Dapitan, and therefore, Dakak. We could literally relax and enjoy nature and seafood at good prices.

Thanks to Living Asia channel for featuring Dipolog. I really actually love that channel, the features are usually narrated in a boring sort of way (as if they want you to fall asleep) but it's cool to really 'see' the place, its sights and offerings, how to get there and which to check out, etc. Of course, if the channel can come up with programs as well-written and dynamic as those in Discovery Travel and Living, maybe there'd be more tourists in this part of the world. But I digress.

So Dipolog it is. I'm thinking we can stay in one of the many inns at the City as we toured the city sights for a while and then cap our vacation off by staying in one of the hotels by the beach. I have to check out their island hopping rates still though.

And yes, I know, I should plan my son's birthday party first.

Thank You, Baby
I'd just like to thank my husband, who is doing all he can to be healthier... because he wants to enjoy his family life with us, because he wants more years of loving with us, because there are just so many sunsets and sunrises more ahead of us.

I love you. And I hope to support you every way I can.

Happily Married
When you're asked by someone, like a stranger thru YM, if you're married, do you just say YES or do you say HAPPILY?

I've realized that most often than not, I actually say HAPPILY instead of a plain and simple YES.

And i've gotten to wondering whether I should stop answering that way.

First, it's not really answering the question... because I am only really being asked if I am, and not how it is if I am. Plus, it might seem as if am trying to be on the defensive ("I am not online because i'm lonely or there's something wrong in my marriage"), or am trying to rub my happiness in their face. Hubs even said that it might even pose a challenge to some guys ("oooh, a happy married woman, let's see if I can make her happier").

But the thing is... I am happily married. I'm not just married in the sense that I am tied to a guy by a document and some Bible verses. I'm not just married in the sense that my family name is different now. I'm not just married in the sense that I am entitled to certain rights and privileges. I am married in the sense that I enjoy everyday that I get to spend with this one/same man. I love knowing him, I love loving him, I love making plans with him, I love building a family life with him. He makes me more fulfilled. He makes me feel more alive. We have lots of happy times.

I have friends who would insinuate that marriage isn't at all what they thought it would be... that their married life isn't as rewarding, isn't as stimulating, isn't as fulfilling, isn't as liberating. Mine is. Despite all the times that Jojo and I wanted to wring each other's beautiful necks, I have never felt that my marriage isn't making me a better person, isn't giving me more of life. I sometimes think that maybe it's because we're still newlyweds and we are still in the honeymoon stage. But some of my discontented, bored friends aren't exactly married longer than I am. And some of my happily married friends have been married for decades.

So I doubt it's really how long you and your spouse have been married.

And I'm actually optimistic that i'd still talk as highly about my husband and married life years from now. So yeah... maybe even if it's not really answering the question, i'd still continue replying with "HAPPILY" instead of a plain, boring "YES". After all, it can also serve as reminder (or beacon of hope) to others that there are happy endings in this world after all.