Current Fave Photo

I randomly take photos of the little dude every now and then, in an effort to capture all of his milestones (as if that's possible). This, however, has got to top my list of Marcus' favorite pictures. 

Taken yesterday morning (using my ever reliable HTC phone, instagrammed with the Lo-Fi filter) when he just woke up. Look at that boy-next-door smile!

Muy gwapito! (yes, you can tell I'm the proud mom!)  I cannot help but smile whenever I look at this picture in my mobile phone.

With this, I decided I'll be making regular posts of my current fave photos of from now on.  Ciao!

Small Miracles

Yesterday, I went to church with little dude.  There was this guy who gave a talk on how he is at a low point in his life, his voice was shaking the entire time.  He shared that his family is going through a financial difficulty and that earlier that morning, he and his wife prayed.  They started their prayer by giving thanks and in the process realized there's so much to be thankful for!  Amidst their troubles, he concluded that, in fact, he was actually spoiled by God! What a wonderful reflection!  He ended up praying for the entire church (in between stifled sobs) to experience this same blessing from Above - to feel that God IS a giving God and that He WILL give more than what we could ever ask for.  I was wiping my tears too as he finished his sharing.

This made me think.  The past few weeks, I've been feeling really low.  In fact, yesterday, I suddenly burst into tears and hugged the hubby tightly as I sobbed.  But recalling what I learned from the Sunday service, nahiya naman daw ako bigla.  Here I am, feeling like I have the most pathetic life, when in fact, I am so blessed!

I have two miracles today:

1. Opening Jax's office bag and finding a mobile phone he won from a raffle last week.  Perfect since my Galaxy tab broke down and I need another phone to be used for official business. Can God be any more knowing of what I need?
2. Comfortable commute becoming an eye-opener.  As I drove out of our office parking lot, I saw two of our assistants on their way out too so I asked them if they wanted to hitch a ride.  When I dropped them off, one of them said, "Thank you, ma'am.  Naka-swerte pa kaming nakasabay sa inyo."  Who am I to complain when I've been living a relatively easy life?

Sometimes, all it really takes is to believe that you are blessed and favored by God. Now I feel a lot better.  :)

A Reflection

I must admit.. I haven't been as faithful as I'd hoped to be lately.  I guess that explains why I constantly felt restless and confused and seem to be lost in direction.  I needed peace of mind that I didn't know where to get from.  I knew I just needed to be with God again but somehow I didn't have the "strength" to go to Him and surrender.

Today, surprisingly, I felt calm - after saying my little prayer, that is.  Thank you, Lord, for planting a seed of desire in my heart to come to you.

Saturday Mornings and Taho

It's recently becoming a ritual for the three of us to wake up early on Saturdays to have some simple family bonding time over bike rides and taho.  Let me walk you through how we do it, like today...

We went outside to take photos of Roxy the race car.  I'm so proud of my little boy who kept on pointing out letters and "reading" it aloud.

He must've missed going out! After all, it's been raining all week! After we're done with the car, Jax and I went for a walk while Marcus rode his bike.  I am happy to announce that he can finally pedal on his own! No more pushing for us or walk-while-on-the-bike for him.  The day he learned this deserves a separate post. :) 

Finally, we reached the gate to our village where Manong Taho can be found.  Hubby and I had two cups each while Marcus finished a smaller-sized cup.  He loves his ta-wo!

I love weekends.  Sigh.  For working parents, these are precious times we could only wish to savor every second of.

Semi P-Trained

Now at two years and seven months, my little boy is semi-potty trained.  I said semi because he still has his nappy at night and whenever he's in school or out of the house.  But still, I think it's great! Say hello to less diaper expenses! :)

Since he was one and a half, I've been bugging my husband to remove the carpets in our living room so we can start training little dude to let us know when he needs to go.  I didn't want our house to smell like pee and poop and with the carpets on the floor, I'm sure it would be much more difficult to clean and remove the nasty odors.  However, lazy as he is, he insisted that we just let Marcus do his stuff, carpet and all.  That was a definite no.

I then decided to give the task at hand a rest until earlier this year. I instructed yaya to leave little dude without a diaper for a few hours everyday.  At first we noticed he was trying NOT to pee (he was holding it in!), conscious that he doesn't have a nappy on, so we got a little worried.  We remained persistent and trips to the CR even if he didn't say he needed to go did the trick.

Hoping to be completely diaper-free soon!

However, there was one challenge then - little dude would pee sitting down! Imagine his dad's horror when he saw this!  We never bought a potty for him to train on so he got the idea of how to do "it" by watching me!  To remedy this, Jax had to take Marcus with him whenever he had to pee to show him how it's supposed to be done.  Hehe.

Now, we're still working on two things:
1. Make him pee at the middle of the night, and
2. Get him to stay in the toilet seat and wait until he's "done".  Kids have very little patience and attention span so this is posing another challenge.  What's good though with Marcus is that, whenever he doesn't have a diaper on, he says "poopoo" which means we have to take him to the throne. If we're lucky (which we more often are) he'd take a dump where he should be.

To be fully P-trained will probably take a few more months but hey, I'm still thankful we're slowly getting there!

How We're Spending Rainy Days at Home

Rain took a vacation here in the Philippines and decided to stay for a while.  Sigh.  All these dark clouds and drizzle-one-moment-then-heavy-rainfalls-the-next downpours and mud puddles and news about floods are making me sad and sentimental.  So. Uncool.

Good thing I have my little ray of sunshine here at home.

Just woke up! How could you not love this little dude?!

The only consolation I have from this weather is that we were sent home yesterday and I had some time with Marcus.  Since we can't go biking outside or go to the playground, this is what we are keeping ourselves busy with:

His turtle alphabet puzzle!!!

We're also starting to train him to work in his own desk (which is just beside the office desk in our room) so that hopefully soon we could both do our own stuff at the same time - him reading or playing while me blogging!  I think it's going to work, with a little more practice, because now as I type, he's pointing out the puzzle pieces and saying the letters aloud while showing it to me.

He won't stop saying the letter over and over until you repeat what he just said.  Oh, kids seeking approval and confirmation! We parents could only wish they'd ask this from us forever.

He puts the pieces on the same layer in the puzzle into a pile.  Could this be a sign of OC behavior?

These are priceless (and sadly, rare) moments I get to share with my little dude.  To me he'll be the smartest, funniest little guy with whom I will forever wish I had the luxury of time to spend every second with.  I want to wish no-work rainy days come more often but that may not exactly be a good thing for mankind.  Hehe. 

Stay safe, everyone! Let's all pray that the sun finally comes out soon.

I'm (still) in Love with Christian Grey

So I finally finished reading the controversial Fifty Shades trilogy.  It took me about a month and a half to do so but yep, I made it through all three books.

(photo source)

You see, I don't really consider myself a reader.  I'm not the type who would always have an unread book on my shelf that I save for when I have my me-time.  The last time I finished a book was last year and it was about parenting (a gift from a good friend - see, I don't buy books!) so I'm not sure that counts since it's something I felt I had to read.  Just thought I'd mention that to give you an idea of how (and why) these EL James books must have had an effect on me.  So anyways...

Fifty Shades had a mix of reviews - some loved it while some thought it was a little too sexual and kinky to the point of even being considered porn.  As for me, I loved it... at least the first two, that is.  Fifty Shades of Grey (I was quite surprised with my own reaction towards the ending!) and Fifty Shades Darker (Best in sex "scenes" award - don't they ever get tired of all that sexing?!) were harder to put down compared to Fifty Shades Freed.  As what the other reviewers and critics have mentioned, the book is not considered well-written.  I found it a bit too spontaneous, as if the author was just literally typing away what was on her mind with no hesitation whatsoever, but I didn't mind.  In fact, I think it was one of the things I liked about it - it made the story a little more "real" and relate-able.  I actually admire the author for having the courage to write about such a seemingly sensitive plot which most women (or maybe even men?) wouldn't dare talk about openly. 


Here's what I loved most about Fifty Shades: 

1. Christian Grey kinda reminds me of my husband.  Minus the ridiculously rich and BDSM bit, Jax is my Mr. Grey - smart, has a way with engines, and (the biggest resemblance) bossy.  Fine, he could act sweet and could be a sweet-talker too, but the operative word there is "could" because he's more often not. Hahaha!

2.  Anastasia Steele inspired me.  She may be easy when it comes to giving in to sex but I find Ana's strength admirable - how she stands up and reasons out to Christian (something I wish I could do so much more of these days), how she really goes after what she wants, and how she could unconsciously (or was it?) able to control her man.  I totally get how she's perceived to be the weaker one but turns out to be the "source of strength".

3.  I'm a sucker for love stories. And fifty shades IS a romantic novel for me.  Sure it had a whole lot of sexual content but if you see beyond that (and actually read the book, not just the F parts! hehe), it's really about acceptance of your partner's past and his/her entire being, of compromising and working things out together, of trusting and unconditional love.   


I've read from several blogs that they're making a movie out of this series already but I also learned that there's not even a director nor writer yet! I guess that will have to wait for at least another year.  I'm curious as to who's the playing Christian and Ana parts though.   Any bets?

Laters, baby! :)