Sunday Restday

Sundays are usually spent as church day for us – and last week was not an exemption.  But before going to church, Neo swam in his mini-swimming pool.  He was so happy. (Thank you, Ninang Aileen for the mini pool).

Then after going to church, we passed by Robinsons Department store to buy Neo as new paid of slippers (we already bought him one the day before but it has no garter).  We weren’t able to find a slipper that would fit Neo with a garter.  But when we passed by the bags section, he immediately liked this one:

He was even the one who brought it in the cashier and carried it out of the department store.  He’s getting big and can already shop (lift? *wink wink) on his own (he didn’t pay for the bag, Papa did :P)

Ciao!

Baby Neo’s Mama

Running Our Own Household

Before we got married, Leo and I already purchased a house and right after our wedding, we stayed in our new house.  It was such a joy to run your own household, being independent is one benefit, but there were lots of things that we were not prepared off when we started.  Some of these are:

1)      BILLS.  Form house amortization, to electricity bills, water bills, phone bills, to a lot more.  When I still lived with my parents, I don’t need to worry if we get our electricity or water connection disconnected or palayasin kami in our house, because bills are magically being paid. 

Now that I run my own household, aside from the fact that we need to budget for all the bills we need to pay, we have to plan when to pay it as well – scheduling it ahead of time to ensure we don’t get overdue – at maputulan L

2)      MEALS.    Planning and preparing meals had also been another thing to think about when running a household.  When I was still single and lived with my parents, I would often complain to my mom: “Fish na naman!” or “Bakit, gulay lang ba ang meron sa palengke?”.  Now that I run my own household and planning meals for my family, I would often think, “Ang onti pala ng food choices…”.

Leo and I have now devised WEEKLY MEAL PLANNER.  We sat together once a week and spend 30mins planning the meal for the next week.  This also helps us in our weekly grocery (buying the things we need ONLY).

3)      CHORES.  Never ending household chores: washing clothes, cleaning the house, washing dishes, and a lot LOT more.  Before, I would throw used clothes in the laundry basket, place my used dishes in the sink, sleep even though the house is unclean – because thanks to my mom, everything was taken cared of.

Now that we are running our own household, I still do the same – thanks to ate Marlyn! Haha!

4)      GROCERIES.  Before, my weekends are spent shopping.  My mom would sometimes joke, “Linggo lingo ka nasa mall ah, hindi ka din nawawala sa sale, may attendance ka ba dun?”

Now weekends are spent for groceries.  With a baby on the house, the ref should be filled with his needs; our freezer should have food so we won’t go hungry.  Simple things missing like salt, sugar, onion, could mess up everything.  Grocery budget is also one thing we need to think about.  We can’t buy a lot of things but just exactly the things we need.

5)      APPLIANCES and FURNITURES.  These are the things which are constant when I am growing up. I could also abuse these stuffs (watching TV while playing computer games; throwing the remote control when I’m in a bad mood, etc.)

Now these are the things I need to fill my house so it would look complete.  We have to save up to buy our own TV, sofa, refrigerator, etc.  so abusing these stuffs is a no-no for me.

These are some of the things you need to be prepared of when you start your own household.  Just thinking about all these stuffs, makes me want to say my mom was a wonder woman to ensure we don’t get stressed out on this.  I wish I could duplicate her efforts so Neo will have the same, if not a better, life than what I grew up on.

Ciao!

Baby Neo’s Mama

Little Mr. Nunag

“Mr. Nunag…” that’s what ate Marlyn fondly calls Neo when waking him up in his afternoon nap.  It was something new to me, calling my baby as Mister – but I know time will come that he will be addressed as such and I will be confused who they will be referring to: my husband or my son? Hehe  good thing they have different names.

My brother is my dad’s junior.  So when someone asks my mom, “pwede po kay Gedion…”, my mom would reply: “anong kailangan mo sa asawa ko?” hehe

Happy Thursday!

Baby Neo’s Mama

The Gatecrasher

I love reading.  From novels to pocketbooks (tagalog and English) to magazines to flyers, and a lot more.  I have been reading for as long as I can remember.  (maybe that’s why I wear glasses, though I still insist it’s the genes).

The last book I read was The Gatecrasher by Madeliene Wickham.  Lately, I’m very partial to feel-good books; that is why I came across her novels.  Madeliene Wickham is also the author of Shopaholic series under her penname Sophie Kinsella.

The Gatecrasher features Fleur Daxeny whose life goal is to be rich and to achieve her goal she gatecrashes at funerals of wealthy people.  There she flirts with widowers and lives with them to eventually get a Gold Card which she uses to do cash advances.  One of the funerals she attended was with the wife of Richard Favour, a very wealthy man with 2 children – shy Philippa and young Anthony.  Philippa is married to Lambert who acts as if he doesn’t care about money but is secretly in debt to the bank for a large amount of money.  Before Emily (Richard’s late wife) died, the couple decided to give 5million pounds each to their children which they can use once they turned 30years old.  They vowed not to divulge this to anybody (except the bank and the lawyers).  Unbeknownst to Richard, Emily told this to Lambert.  It was also Emily who forced Philippa to marry Lambert – using schemes to degrade her daughter’s self-esteem.  Lambert doesn’t love Philippa and abuses her and only stays married to her to gain the trust money.  Richard then found out about it and forced divorced for the couple.

Fleur has a daughter, Zara, who is aware of her schemes.  Zara then stays with the Favour family along with Fleur.  She then had a fling with young Anthony. Fleur was on the brink of thinking that Richard is not wealthy when she found out that the later is a multi-millionaire.  She was able to get her Gold Card but in the end decided to stay with the Favour family but didn’t accept the marriage offered by Richard. 

My two cents:  this is a very nice feel-good novel – though it leaves me hanging. Did they ever found out what kind of character does Emily have?  Did Richard ever have the knowledge of Fleur’s background?  Did Philippa and Fleur ever become friends?  Did Fleur really love Richard? These are some of the questions that kept running to my mind when I finished the book.   But all in all, even though these questions were not answered, the book felt complete – the answers to the questions would be just some icing on the cake.  It’s a classic bida role with kontrabida qualities.

My Rating: 3/5 stars

Ciao!

Baby Neo’s Mama

&,,,,/444 /4? |

è   the first text message I received from my son.  Not sure what it meant… but I was the first person he texted ;) hehe

Neo loves playing with cellphones and is very partial to touch screen phones. 

The Fruits of Ate Marlyn’s Labor

I have mentioned before that ate Marlyn grows her own vegetable patch in our mini garden.  She started this around 6months ago.  It was not a plant and success journey.  Some plants would die due to a lot of different reasons (bad soil, pests, we went to vacation and the plants were not watered, etc.).  

After diligently caring for her plants, this is now the result:  our small tomato plantation! Haha :D Tomatoes are very easy to grow.  (and Neo loves to pick on them, they’re quite huge kasi for a regular tomato). 

However, whenever he sees this plant beside the tomato, he backs off.  I‘m not sure what it’s called– but Neo is scared of it.  It’s beautiful and has velvety flowers – but it also has thorns bigger than those of roses.

As a side note, Neo bumped his forehead in the wall of our house yesterday.  Poor baby boy…

Ciao!

Baby Neo’s Mama

Neo’s First Carousel Ride

Neo had been lusting over the carousel ride at SM Dasma for as long as we could remember.  Whenever we’d pass by that area, he would point at the direction of the carousel, with both his fingers and nguso :P We initially thought, that since he is still young, he wouldn’t be allowed to ride.

However, last Sunday, as we passed by that area, we saw a boy younger than Neo riding the carousel, with his mom holding him.  So we bought a ticket for Neo. He was so delighted to be entering the colorful ride.  He was so excited when I put him over the horse and strapped the safety belt in his waist. 

But lo and behold, it wasn’t even 2 minutes; the carousel was still being filled up with riders, it hasn’t started yet – Neo wanted to get down already.  And when I unstrapped him of the belt, the ride already started.  So we ended up standing inside the carousel while it go round and round… talk about having strong arms when you’re a mom.

Ciao!

Baby Neo’s Mama

Laugh Trip #2

Listening to the radio early in the morning and I heard Nicole Hyala of Love Radio saying this:

Kung kasalanan man ang maging maganda… wag kang magalala, inosente ka….

Hahahah :D

A Very Productive and Tiring Weekend

We had a very productive weekend – though very tiring as well.  We started last Saturday by visiting our new babies.  We signed up some papers for them (which took us more than an hour).

 Here are our new babies ;)

Neo playing at the model house

Then we went to SM Bacoor to meet Lola Net to change the address of her Smart line and buy a gift for the birthday party that Neo would be attending in the afternoon.  Since we took so long before arriving at SM Bacoor, Lola Net already had her errand done, so we just ate lunch.

Neo with Lola Net

Every time we are at SM with Neo, we always give him a chance to go to Tom’s World (or any other play area) to ride cars.  After Neo played, it was Papa Leo’s turn.  Papa played at the Piso slot and was addicted.  We had to drag him out of there before he can insert all our money in that game machine. (kakaloka)

We then went home in time for PJ’s birthday party. Neo was not attentive to the party.  He was just running at the street like a criminal on the loose (the street was closed).  He was given a balloon but it popped after 2mins at Neo’s hands. He won’t even wear the party hat.  We forced him here.

Then at around 5pm, we were rushing out of the house again (without Neo).  We went to Sucat at Holy Trinity Funeral Homes.  Our churchmate, Bro. Vic died.  He was a good man.  We are not close, and based on the testimonials given by those people close to him; it was surely a miss on our part.  We arrived safely home at past 1am.

Sunday came, and we were not able to go to church.  We were so tired by Saturday’s event.  We just went grocery shopping the whole afternoon then at dinner time, we met with the former owner of our house at Dasma as we need her to sign some papers for us. 

We were very productive last weekend BUT we felt like we haven’t rested. L

How was your weekend?

Ciao!

Baby Neo’s Mama

Aliwan Na!

Aliwan is a yearly activity which gathers all the winners of all Philippine Festivals.  Aliwan 2013 officially started yesterday, and will end tomorrow with the grand parade. The grand parade will start at Quirino Grandstand and will end at CCP Complex.  Roxas Blvd (sorry I can’t remember which lane: northbound or southbound) will be closed from 2pm – 10pm.   Tonight, the Reyna ng Aliwan 2013 will be crowned.  

This will be my first time to watch Aliwan (actually, Leo and I are still thinking if we will be watching it since there will be traffic due to lots of people).   But we really want to let Neo see people dancing in beautiful and colorful costumes.  Imagine, we don't have to go to Iloilo to see Dinagyang, no need to go to Baguio to see Panagbenga, and etc. Lucky me, I was given a car pass J yehey!

So, see you tomorrow ;)

Baby Neo’s Mama

Happy 16th month Baby Neo

Time flies so quickly.  Our baby Neo is now 16 months old. Since I learned that I was pregnant, I subscribed to The Bump  for weekly updates of my baby’s development.  Up until now, I still receive updates weekly.  Here is what they gave me this week:

Sleeping is indeed a challenge for us 3days before Neo turned 16months old.  He would sleep at 8-9pm but would wake up in the middle of the night for 1-2hrs and play.  Toddlerobics, as they say, is another challenge for us.  Neo is all over the house.  I am beginning to lose my voice shouting: “Neo, wag ka dyan sa saksakan ng kuryente!”; “Neo, hindi ka pwedeng umakyat sa hagdan!”; “Neo, hindi pwedeng galawin ang electric fan!”; “Neo, dito ka lang!”.  Everytime Neo is out of his crib, I palpitate.

Speaking of his crib – Neo’s crib is made to order.  We had it done as a small bed so he can roam around – and that eventually it would be his bed until he turns 5 years old (para tipid!).  But since Neo loves to jump ala Gangnam style, stomp feet ala Eat Bulaga’s Ryzza doing chacha, and climb the railings as a monkey on the loose – I am forecasting this crib wouldn’t last until the year ends. L

We celebrated his 16^th month with Krispy Kreme’s Mickey Mouse doughnuts! I read about it in Mommy Michi's Blog, so before going home, I thought I’d pass by Krispy Kreme and buy Neo a box.  It costs Php 450 per dozen (they gave me a free glazed donut @ Harbor Square branch J).  We love the doughnuts! Sadly, Neo doesn’t L

Ciao!

Baby Neo’s Mama

Local Campaign Period: Game On!

Local politicians had started campaigning last March 31^st.  We experienced it full-blown yesterday at Cavite.  We were about to go home yesterday when we experienced traffic at Tanza-Gen.Trias boundary (which is very uncommon).   We thought it was just the enforcers exercising the ever popular buhos system.  But we were wrong.  It was a campaign motorcade of our incumbent governor Jonvic Remulla and this running mate Jolo Revilla.  

And guess who’s campaigning for Jolo?  Yes, mommies, it’s Maya!

Ate Marlyn is very fond of Be Careful with My Heart teleserye.  So imagine our kilig when we saw Jodi Sta Maria in the motorcade.  We were ecstatic – she, upon seeing Maya, and me, because she saw Maya. Haha :D Senator Bong Revilla was with them, so another actor on the list of ate Marlyn’s was able to see personalities.

Just a side joke.  Ate Marlyn, use to mix the names of characters in teleseryes.

Be Careful with My Heart (played by Jodi Sta Maria and Richard Yap)

Ate Marlyn: Ne, nakakakilig na si Maya at si Mister Chief.

Me: (hindi ba chichirya un?)

=====

Temptation of Wife (played by Marian Rivera and Dennis Trillo)

Ate Marlyn: Ne, namatay na si Maricel.

Me: sinong Maricel?

Ate Marlyn: si Dennis Trillo, Ne.

Me: ate, Marcel un…. :S

Anyway, BUHOS is a traffic scheme which is very popular in Cavite.  Traffic Enforcers would let all the cars pass through both the northbound and southbound lanes for almost 30mins, and stopping the other cars bound on the other direction for the same time frame.  This is a very irritating scheme.

Baby Neo’s Mama

Jacob’s Ladder Immunization Center

Vaccines are very important part of our children’s health.  It protects our kids from certain diseases we can’t avoid.  It may not stop your kid getting the disease but it will surely lessen the impact.  However, getting your kid vaccinated comes with a price.  That is how we discovered about Jacob’s Ladder Immunization Center.

We wanted Neo to get as much vaccines as we could afford.  We want him to be protected.  Aside from getting free vaccines in our local Health Center, Neo has been getting his vaccines at Jacob’s Ladder.  Jacob’s Ladder offer discounted price for vaccines (up to 30% discount).  They ran out of vaccines fast, so you have to reserve.

Last Sunday, Neo had his Hepa A vaccine.  The baby slept on the car so we need to wake him up at Jacobs.  Luckily, he was not grumpy.  But he doesn’t want to be injected.  We had him lie down (Mama holding Neo’s head and arms; Papa holding Neo’s legs; the Nurse holding Neo’s feet; and the doctor holding Neo’s right leg for the injection).  After a minute of crying, he was okay. 

Jacob’s Ladder @Robinsons Dasma

Papa Leo and Neo waiting for the vaccine (Jacob’s wall is full of notes regarding vaccination)

Jacob’s Ladder pricelist

Vaccine	Price
Hepa B (Pedia)	Php 700
Hepa B (Adult)	Php 500
HIB	Php 850
(6 in 1) DTaP + HIB + Polio + Hepa B	Php 2400
Rotavirus	Php 2400
Measles	Php 450
Flu / Influenza	Php 800
Varicella	Php 1600
(5 in 1) DTaP + HIB + Polio	Php 2000
(4 in 1) DPT + Polio	Php 1600
MMR	Php 750
Hepa A (Pedia)	Php 1200
Hepa A (Adult)	Php 2300
Typhoid	Php 900
Pneumo 23	Php 1400
Meningococcal	Php 1600
Tetanus Toxoid	Php 200
Cholera (Dukoral)	Php 1500
Rabies (Verorab)	Php 1600
Cervical Cancer (HPV)	Php 2000
IPD Synflorix	Php 2500

Jacob’s Ladder Immunization Center

Level 1, Robinsons Place Dasma, Cavite

09323320158

Just an additional note.  You can get free vaccines @ your local Health Center.  They offer the following: BCG, Hepa B, DPT, Polio, Measles, and MMR.

Ciao!

Baby Neo’s Mama

Sinetch Itey 2013

Every Sunday evening, our family watches Goin’ Bulilit.  We love to mimic the dance moves of the bubulilits in their segment: Ang Corny.  Neo loves to dance with them.  However, yesternight, they launch a new segment which brought laughing fits to me and Leo.  The segment: Sinetch Itey 2013.

Three boys (Bugoy, Clarence, and Izzy) played the role of gay TV hosts.  They were so brilliant in their acting.  You wouldn’t think these are just kids.  They were going on asking blind items on senatoriables.  We were laughing at the jokes as well as the delivery of the jokes.   I only had one question though, is it okay to allow kids their age play those kinds of roles?

I tried to look for a video of Sinetch Itey 2013 – but was not successful. L

Ciao!

Baby Neo’s Mama