bluebacon

Although 2008 seemed like the year that went by the fastest and involved the most sacrifice and patience, it is also the year when I got so much of my wishes granted all within a short period of time. You know when they say be careful what you wish for because you just might get it? That certainly felt very true this year. Christmas Day last year, we had Eduardo's relatives over and they were talking about this old wives tale that you can predict the sex of your next child by looking at your first child's hairline. So obviously they were looking at Raine's and said that our next child will be a girl. So I jokingly said, "Oh sure if it's going to be guaranteed a girl, I wouldn't mind being pregnant right now." Boom! Nine months later we had a baby girl. Yes, me and my big mouth. Of course it didn't just happen that easily. There was a lot of alcohol involved. You know how I wither and die if I don't make goals for myself? When I got my Canadian imm...

Eduardo and I celebrated our fourth anniversary over the weekend. Has it already been that long? And that's not even counting the years we just dated. Ugh we're SO old. Anyway so far so good, every year I say this but we still haven't killed each other yet so it's very possible that our annoying individual quirky habits are actually growing on us now. We celebrated by going out to dinner and a movie. We timed everything perfectly so that we didn't have to be gone that long from the babies. With my sister-in-law visiting she was able to give my mother-in-law a hand with taking care of the babies, otherwise we wouldn't have considered going out at all! Anyway we literally pigged out at The Keg, one of Canada's more well-known steak houses. We decided since our first anniversary that we will always have steak on this day. Our first anniversary was doubly special because it was also the day I moved to Canada. But since we were busy unpacking and were covered wit...

It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Living in a low key city where we don't know anyone didn't help make the holiday season less hectic and stressful. We managed to squeeze in Christmas shopping on the 22nd and 23rd of December, grocery for he noche buena was done on the afternoon of the 24th, I was wrapping presents up to the last minute, but in the end we managed to get everything done, including going to church that evening. It's amazing, I actually made it to church this time. I haven't gone to church on Christmas since 2001! What changed? Better time management maybe? I wasn't on the road for starters and yes, better time management. Raine bagged the most Christmas presents, thanks to his grandmother and aunt who spoil him rotten with toys and pretty much everything under the sun. Bell got pretty good presents too. Ah to be a child again. I'm just happy with my new cordless phone, now the battery won't die prematurely and I will no longer ge...

Our home is finally 100% Raine-friendly, as per Eduardo's very strict and specific standards. I should know better and start worrying when I see him walking around with a tape measure permanently attached to his hand. After much measurement, he was finally able to fit half of our living room furniture into our bedroom, thus eliminating anything that could potentially fall over on Raine or anything that would potentially give me a heart attack if he wrecked. Our bedroom now looks like a dorm room again, except that it has crib and the furniture matches. You have to hand it over to Ikea, you can count on them to create furniture that could shockingly fit any bedroom configuration as if it were made to fit there in the first place. I am now only 33% sorry that I paid all that money to ship all that heavy furniture that isn't even made of real wood. Sure the living room doesn't have any character anymore and my knees are full of bruises because I keep bumping on the bed corner ...

1. How is it snowing in Victoria???!!! There's a reason I moved here and one of the top ones is the fact that I'm already fed up with snow! And in a city where snow rarely accumulates this much, there's bound to be some problems, especially when there are only two snow plowers for the entire city!!! Interestingly enough, since it rarely snows here, people are SO happy. 2. I just finished reading Breaking Dawn and much to my surprise, I found another coincidence! I'd already been asked if I will change Isabella's nickname from Bell to Bella just because Twilight is so popular right now. Actually I wouldn't want to specifically for that reason, but much to my surprise, Bell's birthday is actually the same as Bella's! 3. Still about Breaking Dawn, is it just me but the last book seems a little anti-climactic? A little too much happy ending for my taste. 4. I just cut my hair again. Shorter than the last time. With two babies to chase around, having it long ...

Who needs a gym membership, who needs to work out, who needs to exercise at all when you have a toddler and an infant??? The past three months have been a lot easier on me and Eduardo because his mom had been keeping Raine at her place pretty much the whole time, but since she had recently rejoined the workforce the past week, I've been a full-time mom to Raine and Bell all by myself and boy it has been crazy! Raine plays on his own but the problem begins when he gets bored then he starts being creative with what he plays with, and that could include anywhere from climbing furniture, turning over chairs and tables, throwing things at Bell, potentially wrecking my computer, or god knows what else, I'm not holding my breath anymore. We're still not done rearranging furniture to make our place as Raine-friendly as possible, so until that happens, he cannot be left alone, not even for a minute. I even have to watch out that he doesn't boot Bell out of her bouncer. There wa...

1. Last weekend we were running the danger of not being able to put up any decorations at all because of scheduling conflicts and lack of time to go out and get ornaments, but now I'm happy to report that I have finally finished our tree. Last year was a Joanna tree and I got my wish because I have always wanted a blue themed Christmas tree. This year is an Eduardo tree. Red all the way! It's not my color palette so I had a hard time decorating and coming up with a concept. Well, not exactly. I had a concept I just couldn't visualize it very well beforehand since red and gold isn't something I normally gravitate towards. Last year when I was working on our tree, my difficulty was how to create the shimmer effect without losing the blue among the silver since together they seem to wash out each other's color. So in the end I decided to add blue lights to keep the blue and still have the sparkle. But this time around both red and gold are very strong and vibrant. Simp...

I almost forgot about this story. I told you before that we went on a Super Walmart trip on Eduardo's birthday right? When we were there I decided to try the new Kraft Bagelful because I've been seeing so much of it on tv commercials, so I bought one box just to try. The next morning when I had it for breakfast I was surprised that there were only three pieces inside the box instead of four! It wasn't a big deal, I only bought it for about $3 I think. BUT I'm also on maternity leave and have nothing exciting going on so I decided to call Kraft and let them know about it. After all it might've been a mechanical defect and there might be thousands of boxes with only three Bagelfuls inside. So I called, they asked me questions, and even thanked me for participating in their product survey since it is a new product. In the end and to my surprise, they said they'll mail me a check for $3 so I can go buy myself a new box of Bagelfuls! Hahaha! God I must be really bor...

1. I can't believe they're turning Marley and Me into a movie! Don't get me wrong, it's a good book, especially if you're a dog lover. But it's also the book that had me shaking and bawling while reading it in the library and had to steal a whole roll of paper towel from the washroom. It's one thing to read it, but can you imagine what a mess I would be if I went and saw it in the movie theatre??? That's just mean, they shouldn't make dog movies where the dog ends up dying in the end! 2. I still haven't seen Twilight. I won't be seeing Twilight until it comes out on dvd, I might as well come to terms with that. We also decided not to attend any office Christmas parties this year. This is what it's like to have two kids in North America. Asking someone to babysit a toddler is one thing but asking someone to babysit a toddler and an infant is just plain cruel. 3. Today we all got dressed up and went to get our family Christmas photo taken b...

I have no aptitude for religion. This isn't a case of faith or belief, or whether I'm for it or not. This is simply a case of it's not one of the things that my brain could process easily, along with biology, philosophy, political science, law, and subject matters that deal with pure numbers. All of a sudden I had horrible flashbacks of STS, Nat Sci I, Soc Sci I, Philo I, where the teacher lectured, I stared back and tried and tried to grasp, but just couldn't. Let me backtrack. When Eduardo and his family arrived here a couple of months ago, they decided that this was the time that they were all going to be actively involved in church again. I don't really know much about their religion so when they said that missionaries were going to come visit us at home I thought that this was just some hospitable thing that they did because we all just moved here. The first couple of visits were just a hi hello kind of thing. During this whole time it just baffled me why they ...

Happy 30th birthday to Eduardo and happy third year anniversary to me since I became a Canadian landed immigrant. HA! Three years ago Eduardo probably thought my landing was the best birthday present ever, but that opinion probably differs now after he has lived with me for this long! It was a little challenging trying to find a way to celebrate since we just moved to Victoria and don't really know anyone here. It's hard to just travel anywhere because we have two babies, plus we live on an island and getting off the island with a car and two babies is just a financial and logistical nightmare so going to Vancouver was definitely out of the question. We decided that we'll just do a roadtrip to Nanaimo which is only a couple of hours away from Victoria and apparently the home of the biggest mall in Vancouver Island. It was a good day trip, just something new to look at for a change. If only it wasn't raining like crazy then we could've explored downtown Nanaimo, but ...

Bell is exactly two months today! I celebrated by making my favorite carbonara pasta and carrot cake. I can't believe two months have passed and I only have happy Isabella moments to remember them by. Good job, I'm really getting better at this mom thing. Can you believe it, not once during these months did I even think that it would be more productive and better for my mental health if I just went back to work? Amazing! So anyway, here are some updates on Bell. 1. Her doctor's check up isn't until tomorrow so I can't give you the whole news on how much she weighs, how long she's gotten, etc, but she's starting to fit her 0-3 months clothes so that must means she's getting bigger. 2. She has started to smile. A LOT. She chuckles even. 3. She responds when you talk to her. In fact it's starting to feel more and more like a conversation. 4. She learned to focus a lot earlier than I remember with Raine. She now loves the mobile above her crib. 5. She ha...

http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2008/11/fun-what-do-you.html I've been a big fan of the Happiness Project and have found the articles, interviews, and blog entries really enlightening, amusing, and even helpful sometimes. One of the more recent entries is finding what's fun for you. I have embarked on trying to find that out myself a few months ago, but I was too troubled that I came up with answers that are generic to myself. Meaning things that would seem most likely fun for me to do knowing me. Now I realize that when I don't allow myself to be distracted by the things the cause me misery, I am able to focus more on what I think are fun things to do. I also realized that some don't require that much thought and reflection after all and are actually right in front of my nose, I just don't notice it. Here are a few that I was able to come up with in a snap: Fun activity number one -- watching Friends! Eduardo and I have all ten seasons on dvd and...

I'm just airing out my frustration. I tried doing my holiday shopping on the Disney Store website. I didn't even buy anything expensive and the shipping charges cost half of everything I bought! And that doesn't even include the exchange rate yet plus whatever charges I'll get at customs. Sucks, sucks sucks! I can't really go out because I'm on house arrest for the next eighteen years taking care of my kids. Even if I could go out, we're a one-car family now, meaning I won't be able to use my car again - ever! Not without Eduardo anyway and then running errands will have to be ten times as complicated because we have to bring the kids with us. And even if none of those things were complicated, just where would I shop exactly? Coming from the land of no stores, congratulations, I have successfully backed myself into an island of even lesser stores! So much for my pre-holiday spirits. Hey I tried. To top everything off Eduardo's 30th birthday is coming...

I went to church today. Believe it. There's no good day to start than the day that we gained back an hour. But kidding aside, another reason was that it was All Souls Day. I realized that I'm starting to grow a really long list of friends and loved ones who have passed away and believe it or not, I had this really strong urge to pray for them. There's a bigger reason why I wanted to go, and well, read on. This is the first time I'm going to admit it out loud and in writing but I've actually been attending mass ever since I moved to Victoria. The whole practice kind of got halted in the flurry of things when everybody else arrived here and the whole giving birth thing, but technically I've been trying to see if I could fix my whole spiritual issues. I haven't gone in so long. I used to go, not as consistently as I would've wanted to, but I tried to go as often as I could. But then work got in the way and my weekends were usually shot, and the times that t...

Halloween... the one holiday during the year that I haven't learned to dislike yet so it's pretty safe to say that it's my favorite holiday. Hopefully nothing would ever happen that could potentially screw up this day for me because... I really like candy. This year I have two kids and actually got to go trick or treating with Eduardo. I was really excited about that because he missed out on last year because he had to work. I thought that since we're all together that it would be fun. For some reason something was off, like something was missing. Okay so maybe it was partly because we didn't get that much candy. Although I love, love, love Halloween because it's a happy event where children and adults get to wear costumes and it's a great family day and everything but I'm going to level with you, more than anything else I'm in it for the candy. No it wasn't just the candy, it was something else and I'm not sure what. It was like we came home...

I just finished reading Twilight. I didn't even know what it was until the day that Breaking Dawn went on sale and I happened to be scouting out bookstores all over the city on my quest to find the perfect world map to put up in my living room. I assumed it was kind of a big deal since the staff at all the bookstores I went to were wearing costumes, just like when the last Harry Potter book came out. So I asked what it was all about and that's when I found out about this whole new vampire series that came out. I was surprised I didn't know about it at all considering I had always been interested in vampire anything. Anyway, that was the first reason I became interested in reading the series. The last vampire novel I really enjoyed reading was three years ago when The Historian came out, I was really looking forward to finding another one that was fun to read. Then later on I discovered that the names of the main characters are the names of my two kids. Coincidence. Then now...

1. What is it with breastfeeding? Is there some kind of wireless device that communicates between the baby and my breasts? Because milk seems to come out coincidentally everytime Isabella cries and claims she's hungry. 2. I find it interesting that whenever we pass by another parent who's also pushing a Bugaboo stroller, there's always that exchange of "secret society" look and nod. I call it the "I feel your pain" look, aka the I-feel-your-pain-because-I-know-that-stroller-cost-an-arm-and-a-leg-and-possibly-half-of-your-internal-organs look. 3. I know I was complaining about how slow time seems to be passing by, but I take that back now. We're almost at the end of October! I can't believe that pretty soon we need to start preparing for the holiday season again. Oh wait, but not before Halloween! 4. Gas prices are going down! I can't believe I'm rejoicing over $1.20/liter when I just heard in the news that in Toronto it's the first ti...

"How do you solve a problem like Raine Edward? How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?..." Today was the first day I was left alone to watch over my two babies all by myself. Eduardo had to work and his mom, who's been such a big help since Bell was born because she's in charge of watching over Raine, spent the day working at Elections Canada. All I can say is, my God how much did I want to jump off the balcony today? Okay it wasn't totally THAT bad. On some level I enjoyed it because I got to spend time with Raine, and first order of business? Begin the Rodgers and Hammerstein brainwashing session! Hey if he can be obsessed with the weather network theme song, I think The Sound of Music has a pretty good shot at grabbing his attention. You should've seen him! He loved it! Okay maybe not completely loved it but after I play the DVD about a hundred more times, I'm sure he'll get the message. He did pay attention during all the singing and dancing par...

Happy first month to Isabella! Oh and happy thanksgiving too! It was a very low key thanksgiving for a change. Just us family, which is a great thing for a change. We didn't feel like doing a traditional thanksgiving dinner for even the smallest turkey ends up being too much turkey and we always end up having too much leftovers that we eventually just throw out anyway. So this year I decided to make roast beef, veggies, with homemade fried rice for the rice eaters and mashed potato for the potato lovers. We also had apple pie and Nanaimo bars for dessert. Nothing crazy but a good enough meal to make it a celebration. I love feeding my family. Cooking has become such an interest for me, it would shock a lot of people to know this about me, coming from the person who's one and only expertise used to be fried egg. But now not only is it a form of stress release but it's also a creative outlet for me to mix things up in the kitchen because I don't usually follow reicipes to...

I'm so happy that Kristal came to visit us this week with her friend Aileen. Technically Nancy still holds the plaque for the first person who came to see me in Victoria but Kristal and Aileen are officially our first official guests in our home which led us to hold our first official dinner at home as well. So happy to be able to have people over! We spent the last few days going around Victoria, exploring downtown, the different neighborhoods, taking pictures of the amazing scenery we're so spoiled to have here, and enjoying each other's great company. We got to go on the harbor ferry tour for the first time and after living here for this long I'm ashamed to admit I'd never been to Fisherman's Wharf. I also can't believe that of all the places in downtown Victoria, I haven't explored the Johnson Street shopping area where there still exists an honest to goodness Converse store that had me salivating over all the Chuck Taylor shoes I could possibly wan...

1. Bell - When your kid is as young as Bell right now, you tend to look at him/her as this little sexless thing. I do anyway. Right now Bell is just a baby, until I went into the store today and onto the children's section and noticed that HUGE section on girls' clothes. It just hit me, I have a baby girl! AND I cannot wait to dress her up! 2. Raine - Although it's not exactly a major accomplishment to brag about but it's pretty funny how of all the things that he could've learned from me, he had to retain the silly senseless things that I taught him when he was a baby. For example instead of calming him down before bedtime, I did just the opposite. We would play and I would tickle him until he fell asleep exhausted from laughing. So now when he all of a sudden is laughing at everything right around bedtime, or start banging into walls and furniture because he's too busy laughing to notice where he's going, it just means he's sleepy. Also, I taught him t...

I didn't think I would be counting this soon and I totally did not intend to. When I decided to go on a one year maternity leave, I made that decision wholeheartedly. I'm not even thinking about how much work I'm missing out on right now, which I normally would. But for some reason this whole staying at home taking care of the baby thing is dragging by really slowly. I don't remember time passing by this slow with Raine. Well probably because I was stressed out, cranky, unbathed, underfed, and hated everyone around me because most of the time I was home alone and wasn't getting any help back then. But now that it's not as stressful as before, the days seem to be dragging by really slowly that I can't help but think that I can't believe it has only been three weeks! But at the same time three weeks is such an awful long time not to be in the office, and with that I can't help but think that I can't believe I have forty-nine weeks more to go before...

It started while Eduardo was browsing through Friendster last night. He came across one of our batchmates whom we both couldn't remember the last name and so we went through every page of our high school yearbook until we found this person's page. It was an hour of browsing and laughing through pages that reminded us of what probably were the funniest moments we could possibly remember. By the way, when we got to my page, my baby pictures looked so much like Raine, it was hilarious. But like that wasn't enough reminiscing, Eduardo whipped out one of his video tapes of various snippets from high school that he took during grade nine. It had footages of the Skit Pinoy , his 3-on-3 basketball thingie at Mega Mall, HE practicum, and other random footages in and out of the classroom. I even saw me. God I looked like a dork, which is probably still true anyway considering I still look the same. Anyway, I thought it was pretty funny that I couldn't recognize Eduardo in the vid...

Pro: I only gained a total of 10 lbs during my pregnancy Con: I was not able to eat any chocolate or sweets the entire time (and most desserts and junk food for that matter)! Let me explain. It did not matter what kind of chocolate I had, every single one of them had the same flat taste that would send anyone through the roof with disappointment. Same with different kinds of sweets such as cookies, pastries, chips, even ice cream! When Eduardo got here, three different flavors of ice cream occupied a massive amount of space in my freezer, all of them I barely touched. What happened was I would get a craving for a certain flavor but as soon as I eat it, I would lose interest because it tasted like crap. Pro: Now I can eat chocolate and sweets again Con: I am eating them like there is no tomorrow! I made this! Yup, everything tastes great now. I had never been so happy to have all my tastebuds functioning normally again! I've been so inspired with it, I even made a chocolate lava ca...

When I was pregnant with Raine, Eduardo and I took forever to come up with a name. We could never agree on a boy name and it took us eight months to finally agree on one, and that's because he was going on vacation to the Philippines and I forced him to rack his brains for something that we could both agree on in case I go into early labor and he was thousands of miles away. But with Bell, we knew from the very start that we wanted to name our daughter Isabella. I don't really know exactly what his reasons are, I'm just glad he agreed with me. I had always wanted to name my daughter after a queen -- a strong-willed woman who had a great impact in world history. Amelie is after one of my best friends, Amelia -- also a very courageous, strong-willed and determined woman, who is battling with cancer at the moment. A very smart, creative, artistic, and talented person, I am proud to name my daughter after her.

So I spoke too soon, my bouncing baby girl came nine days early. But it's okay, she was as low maintenance during labor as she was during my whole nine months of pregnancy. Stomach spasms woke me up at 9am on Saturday, that came every 7-10 minutes apart. I thought I'd be spending another full day of Braxton-Hicks, and what would've been a waste of a perfectly great weekend. But then the intensity of the pain just developed rather too quickly that after an hour we were pretty convinced that I was in labor. Of course having learned from the last time I was in that situation, I thought the best course of action was to not panic and to not head straight to the hospital. If this baby was coming that day, there was no way I was going to the hospital on an empty stomach and absolutely no way that I will be pushing for god knows how long with just jello in my system. So I made Eduardo prepare lunch and I mean really prepare lunch. I'm not talking let's-put-some-leftovers to...

Tomorrow is Friday and once again another week will pass as I move on to my 39th week of pregnancy. Still no baby. A good sign. Not that it's a bad thing if she came now or sooner but perfectly baked and seasoned at 40 weeks is still my preference. My last day at work is next Friday which is two days before my due date. The reason I opted to take off from work this close to my due date was because I'm working off of the information I was able to gather and observe from my last pregnancy. Raine came on time so trend-wise, although it's not a guarantee, it's logical to use that information in forecasting that perhaps my second child will come on time as well. Besides, applying what I learned from experience, I want to be a lot calmer this time around. Knowing what to expect, I don't want to be overprepared, sitting at home just anticipating when the labor pains will begin. I'd rather make use of my time in a less idle way. And less idle in deed! Time just keeps fl...

No, I'm not dizzy. This isn't a pregnancy issue. I've just been feeling a bit down lately that I'm trying to access every little thing I know that could cheer me up and Dizzy is one of those things. Dizzy is the first song on the Goo Goo Dolls album, Dizzy Up The Girl , which was the first CD I blasted, REALLY loudly, on my CD player the first night I spent by myself in my dorm room (the first time I made dinner for myself and took me a good ten minutes to figure out how to turn on the stove) when I moved to Chicago. Therefore it was the first song that served as the perfect memory of the best soundtrack to one of the happiest times in my life. Actually, probably even the happiest. No biggie, just something upbeat I'd been listening to. Why have I been feeling blue? Oh don't even get me started... God forbid I state another opinion supported by perfectly good logic and facts. " Be the bigger person... " somebody told me. It's so annoying to be th...

Tomorrow it'll be a week since Eduardo arrived in Victoria. It's been really great so far. Some adjustments of course, such as having people around all the time again. For example, Eduardo arrived Saturday evening and his first course of action first thing the following morning was to switch the bedroom furniture between the two rooms and organize everything that can be organized at that point. You'd think he'd be exhausted from driving for five days across the country but no, he was definitely in the mood to haul furniture by himself. So not only did I have to get used to sleeping next to someone again, on day two, I also had to get used to sleeping in a new bedroom with a new bedroom setup! Don't get me wrong, everything turned out great, utilizing every possible space to its full potential, which I am a big fan of, I just wish I could've done it myself. It's not fair, how come boys get to carry heavy furniture so much faster and more efficiently, and Edua...

It's been a million years since I'd been giddy excited about anything. Actually I'm not giddy excited right now either, but this is the closest that I know I can get to being giddy and I have to admit, I am excited to see my husband tomorrow. It's been two months since I last saw him and it's really not that big a deal since we've been through worse and definitely a longer period of time of being apart, and practice makes perfect, right? Of course I miss him but there are more productive things to do than mope and by now we have become experts at long distance relationships. Eduardo is now in Kamloops, BC. Hey after four days of driving all the way from Toronto, at least we're finally in the same time zone, not to mention the same province. He was actually supposed to get here by tonight but it would be cutting it too close and he might not make the ferry so we decided to extend his driving extravaganza for another day. At least by adding another day to his ...

Raine's here!!! Raine arrived Monday at midnight with his grandma, with two gigantic suitcases and the most colossal hockey bag I had ever seen. The hockey bag alone could fit the two other gigantic suitcases, plus a pregnant me. The sight of it was beyond me. I really should've taken a picture. It was like a studio apartment. Anyway according to the update I got, he was a very good boy on the plane. He slept well, watched tv, of course it couldn't have been the most comfortable five hour ride since he didn't have his own seat but everything went well which was just great. When I saw him at the airport it was like, ohmigod he's like a real kid now. He was taller, he was sitting down on one of the airport carts and I don't remember him having longer legs before. That was also the first time I had seen him with short hair and he actually looked like a boy. And no, sorry to disappoint you, I didn't have an emotional weeping mommy moment. I didn't have one w...