Only 2 more weeks before our trip to Florida. Excited? heck no.. worried is more like it. It's our first major trip with Matthew, so who knows how that will go. Though I'm sure it'll be just fine, I'm just  a worry-wort.

It's busy busy busy. My husband's car needs new tires (it's hydroplaning - scary since the forecast said we'll have a couple of rainy days ahead of us). The minivan needs an oil change before we head down south (4 hrs away) the weekend after the coming one. We have to drop off the dogs. The in-laws are gracious enough to take care of them and save us a couple of hundred dollars. I just found out Koby's bottom front teeth are lose (I don't know why) so I'll have to take her to the vet to get that checked out. I also have to go ahead and groom both the dogs because they're overdue(2 hrs a dog - argh!)! I might just shave off their whiskers and skirts (hair style for schnauzers) to prolong the time until their next grooming. The dogs didn't used to be so much work! Well, scratch that.. they were, but it wasn't as hard before Matthew came along.

But nowadays, Salem + Koby + Matthew = HELP ME!

Matthew hasn't been eating well lately. No matter what I give him, he refuses to eat. Except if I give him banana (his favorite) and other fruits. I've found out this past couple of days that it's because he wants to feed himself. If I even so much as hold th spoon or fork for him, he screams. The problem with letting him eat by himself is that it takes way too long and it's way too messy. I know I should just let things be, but ... argh! I guess the best I can do is give him foods that aren't to messy.

The CPR/First Aid class on Saturday was very useful. I am highly confident about my CPR skills (we spent 7 hrs on it). The rest of the 1 1/2 hrs was First Aid and on that, I am not confident about my skills. However, I guess this is understandable since there are so many difference scenarios and different treatments that of course it' shard to practice it over and over in class.

The class was from 9 to 5:30 (but ran long and we didn't get out of there until 6). But for the hubby and I, things started an hour earlier since I thought the class starts at 8. We were outside the building wondering why no one was around and the door was locked. After 5 minutes of wondering, I finally read my little confirmation sheet and saw my mistake. Whooops.

Like I said, the class was excellent and I highly recommend it to all parents.

This morning I practiced first aid on my son. Here's the evidence of my mischeivousness.

 

Isn't my sling skill marvelous?

And what about this? A happy patient... what more can I ask for?

 

The Minti tag has begun and wouldn't you know it, the day it started I've gotten tagged by 2 people (allyp, jessgore). I feel mighty special.

1. What's your child's favorite book? One of Matthew's favorite book is a Little Golden Book: The Wonderful House. He loves identifying all the animals on there and especially love pointing at the birds and bees.

2. What's your favorite childern's book? When I was younger, I loved reading all the Nancy Drew books. My aunt, who helped raise me, was an avid reader and would often read Nancy Drew and romance novels. But she was into reading that she got me into it. I loved it!

3. What's your child's favorite thing to eat? Matthew has a sweet tooth and since I don't really give him a lot of junkfood, he is fixated on fruits. Unfortunately, it does affect his bowel movement, if you know what I mean.  I know, I know...too much info. Bwa hahahah!

4. What's your favorite thing to eat? My my... I love chinese food and italian food. Yummy! oh, and seafood... double yummy!

5. What's your child's favorite toy? My little man is trully a man. He loves cars. Ever since he started to play, he played with a school bus I got him and fiddled with the wheels for long stretches of time. He may have not known how to play with it but he did know how to make the wheels go round and round.

The wheels on the bus go round and round...round and round..round and round...the wheels on the bus go round and round....a through the town.

6. What's your favorite game? I love Pictionary. I first played it at a party and it was a lot of fun. The newest one made people play blindfolded, left handed, draw without lifting the pen... tons of fun!

Now, I'm tagging MonkeyDad, breezy27, ollie71, kryztyna, jaxsycam
Here is how it works, answer all these questions and then tag 5 more minti members! Have guys and gals!

Last night was my husband's night to put Matthew to bed. So while he did that, I decided to go outside and do some chores (this was about 6:30 - 7:30 pm). This morning I woke up and was full of welts on my legs, about 20 of them so far that I can see. They are terribly itchy.  I guess I was bug dinner last night. The hubby is forcing me to go to the doctor, but being the stubborn person that I am I resisted. Though I did finally give in and called the doctor - unfortunately, the office is closed this week. Oh well, I tried.

My in-laws are coming today to watch Matthew tomorrow. The hubby and I are attending an infant/child First Aid/CPR class and it's 8 hrs. Yikes! Hopefully it's a lively class so I don't fall asleep.

Have a nice weekend everyone.

This week's featured member is hrs2004. She's been here on Minti since the early days and she's still going strong! She always has ideas on how to improve Minti to make life better for the rest of us minti-addicts.  Visit her blog and get to know her better!

 

I think there's an unspoken rule in blogging - if you want people to visit your page and make comments, you have to go visit other people's pages and make comments yourself! It's much like the golden rule, really.   So if you're feeling lonely because the number of visits on your blog or page doesn't seem to be going up, then you have to go out there and be visible. Make comments on people's blogs and advertise your page (passively of course because the fact that your avatar shows up on another person's blog means they may visit yours).

That is all.

 

The day was busy busy busy!  I had my yearly eye exam this morning and it seems that my eyes have gotten slightly worse. If my eyes don't stabilize, I swear I'll become like Mr.McGoo. While at the doctor's office, I got a call from the hubby telling me to go straight home after the eye doctor instead of picking up some groceries (he took the day off today). He tried to feed Matthew lunch but all he wanted was bananas and nothing else. But when I got home, all was well and Matthew was already asleep for his nap and his dad was snoring right beside him.

With things quiet, I was going to get my daily dose of minti but I couldn't see anything within 3 feet in front of me because my eyes were dilated from the eye exam. So, minti wasn't an option. What did I do instead? I woke the hubby up and dragged him to do more of our project - staining/sealing the deck. He worked on the deck and I worked on the front porch. We both sweated like little piglets. (Do pigs sweat?)

When Matthew woke up, we cleaned up and headed off to do some errands. The hubby decided to look at golf clubs, which Matthew enjoyed (he loves balls) but when I took away the club that he grabbed, all hell broke lose. Fortunately there is an icecream parlor right beside it so we headed there for ice cream. Phew!

 

 

Either my husband and I have forgotten which one is the left and which one is the right, or Matthew learned to put his crocs on himself.

Matthew has been so good at only using his pacifier at naptime and bedtime, but lately he's been wanting it all the time. I wanted a picture of him without his paci in his mouth, so I placed it in the pocket on his chest. Here he is trying to get it out.  Later today I found out the reason though - his 15th & 16th teeth are coming out.

Thanks, Clay. I feel honored to be a Featured Member!

1. Starting with name, location, how many children. 

My name is Isabel and I currently reside in Virginia, USA with my husband, MonkeyDad, and one son, Matthew. Matthew is 17 months old and very much a handful. I say "currently" because we've moved a lot because the industry my husband works in is very fickle and have a lot of ups & downs.

2. How did you find Minti?

Well, I didn't really find Minti, Minti found me!  Minti's own, Matthew, popped in my yahoo page and made a comment about Minti. I came to visit right away and I've been here ever since.

3. What's your favorite thing or feature at Minti?

There are a lot of good things about Minti, but my most favorite thing is the "Latest Activity". It is very conducive to a warm tight-knit community because everyone knows what's going on everywhere and can get as involved as they want right away. I used to try and make a comment on everything that's going on, though I must admit that it's getting harder and harder to keep up. Minti is growing so fast!

4. What's your favorite thing about being a parent?

Being a parent is an amazing job, albeit hard. My favorite thing about it is seeing everyday how my son develops and grow up to be a young person. It is trully amazing. From a blob (my nickname for Matthew after my 10 week ultrasound) to a little person and to be there to see everything is an experience that everyone should go through. I can't wait for what the future holds.

5. What has been your biggest parenting challenge?

This is a loaded question. Everything about being a parent is challenging, but if I were to pick one, I would have to say that the most challenging is the ability to stay patient and not get caught up in the moment of frustration. Sometimes I have my off days and get highly frustrated about something that Matthew is doing and instead of nurturing him, I end up probably stunting some development. Thankfully, times like this are few and far between. There is a lot to be said for even just a 30 minute mommy alone time  in order to recharge!

6. What's the best parenting advice you've ever gotten from someone?

A few people have told me "whatever works for you" and I think this is a great advice. We can offer each other helpful suggestions about coping as parents, but  not all of them will work so just pick and choose and do what works.

Last night, we were all sprawled on the livingroom floor just having family time. Matthew climbed on me, then on his dad. Then we were all on top of each other. It was fun. Then, Matthew decided to stand up and run around. He picked up his sippy cup from the floor and stood near where my head was and dropped the cup on me. He was having so much fun about the whole floor time and was still smiling when he dropped the cup on my head. It hurt a great deal, so I bolted up and looked Matthew on the eye and told him that it wasn't nice to throw something on someone. He didn't quite get what I just told him, so he got something else and threw it on me again. By this time, both my husband and I were telling him that what he was doing wasn't nice because it hurt...smiles wiped off of our faces. The smile faded from Matthew's face as he looked at me. Then he looked at his dad and looked back at me looking like a sad puppy and ran to me for a hug.

The whole thing was quite amazing to me. This was the first time that I can tell that Matthew fully understood that he had done something bad. It's also possible that he just didn't like the disapproving looks he got from us, but I saw in his eyes that it was more than that.

The hubby and I cut Matthew's hair today. I didn't put a towel around his neck, which was  a big mistake. It didn't bother him at first, but as more and more hair fell on him, he got itchy and irritated. We had to cut the session short. While at the bath, I thought I should do more cutting...and I think I may have been overly excited. The front looks a little short now, but my husband said it's still fixable. Whatever happens, there's still a month before the wedding we have to go to... 

The day started out early with matthew's swim class. After we went home, Matthew ate lunch and napped. When his daddy came home from golf, we tag teamed on powerwashing our deck and porch. Someone always has to be able to run up to Matthew when he cries awake. But thankfully, Matthew had a 3 hour nap today... what a miracle! Then we washed up and had my birthday dinner. We shopped a while afterwards and didn't get home until right at Matthew's bedtime. But instead of being able to run to the computer and mingle with my minti friends, I decided to soak my sorry feet. My eczema is really bad in the summer time and soaking makes it feel better...

Anyway, I have a few minutes to look around and catch up here before it's bed time.

I'm sure Matthew is the envy of some women with his long lashes.

Today is a rainy day in my part of the world. It is actually a very welcome change since it's been too hot lately. My boys got me a new digital camera for my birthday. I was resistant to the idea of waisting money for something that I already have but after I played with it yesterday, boy, I realized that it long overdue. It's much faster and much easier to use. Plus it allows me a bit more freedom to experiment and slowly more away from the "auto" feature.

Mr. Matthew is feeling under the weather. Last night before bed, his nose started running like a faucet. Then he woke up at an ungodly hour of 5:30, which was earlier than his dad's normal wake up time. Then his nose just got worse and worse. His eyes are tearing up too so I gave him Benadryl so he is napping right now.

I will be in and out of Minti today, probably mostly out. You all know how it goes when a little one is sick.

I woke up and got greeted by my 2 boys (hubby & son). I would have wanted to sleep longer, but Matthew has been waking up at 6 and there's nothing that I can do to put him back to sleep. Aside from the greetings, today is just like any other day. Hubby & I will probably watch the recorded TV shows we have to catch up and just cuddle tonight. I even logged on Minti like always.

But what is different are the 2 little numbers under my Minti avatar. It now says 30. No hoopla, no fuss, nothing...it just changed quietly. I guess it's a great reminder that age is really just a number.

Thank you, everyone for all the birthday wishes!! What a warm fuzzy community this is.  I especially love Rachel & Clay's photo gift.

I've been stressed and depressed this passed few days because my house has been messy. Though my husband and I aren't doing anything special tomorrow (we'll celebrate this coming weekend), I would love to have a fairly uncluttered house. Last night, my husband didn't want to see me so depressed anymore and helped me out with the cleaning. We had a lot done so now I'm OK.  How lucky am I to have such a great husband.

Yesterday the 3 of us went on an errand to Home Depot for some projects we have to do. We got home a little late so we bought pizza and took it home. When we got home, Matthew said "puh puh" and pointed at the pizza box. He then went to his high chair and wanted to be put in it. It was great! He sits in his high-chair to eat so he wanted to be in it to eat the "puh puh".

Then at bedtime, I was planning on skipping the story time because it was already a later than Matthew's normal bedtime. But he didn't want to skip it! He cried and pointed to where I keep the bedtime books. So we "read" a little bit before turning off the light. We don't really read yet since he always want to flip through the pages. The best we can do is actually just look at the pictures and identify them.

Ok, that's all I have for today. I've been feeling blah for a couple of days. I have no energy to do anything and all I want to do is sit down and vegitate, as much as having a toddler would allow anyway. I'm shutting down mentally and physically because there's too many things to do. It's a self-defeating thing really. I've let the house get messy and the list of stuff to do is piling up. I get overwhelmed just looking around.  I'm waiting for a kick of energy, which usually happens after I get overwhelmed, at which time I run around the house like a mad woman and clean whatever I can without stopping.

I will try and catch up with you, Minti-peeps, later if I can. 

This morning was Matthew's 5th swimming class and he is doing very very well. A few times, he was able to kick his way towards a rubberducky with no help from his daddy. He was wearing a floaty on his back though. But it was great! Here are a few pictures.

My husband, MonkeyDad, blogged today, here on Minti, about an article he found on Yahoo today about a US magazine displaying a breastfeeding baby on the front page. I urge you to read it.

When the issue came out, men and women wrote in about how disgusting it was and how they had to rip out the cover. What is so disgusting about something so natural? In response, I found a group that is writing the magazine a letter comending them on their effort to promote and support breastfeeding. They have set up a support letter to the magazine and as a show of support, consider signing in your name and your email. Here is the link http://www.promom.org/3min/3min_thankbabytalk_july06.html .

I was thinking, why is itnthat people are generally stingy about compliments in general? Some people are more willing to go up to others and tell them faults, instead of telling them something nice.

I remember when I was 6 years old. There was a girl in my class that I thought was very pretty, so I went up to her and told her so. She was quite taken aback, but she did smile and thanked me.

So, my thought for the day is. Say something nice to a couple of people everyday, I'm sure it'll make you feel good.

 

What an uneventful hot day. I couldn't even take Matthew out for a walk early in the morning because it was already way too hot. But I did have time to run outside and take a picture of this weird grass that's taking over my lawn though. Here it is if you want to look http://www.flickr.com/photos/76611144@N00/ . It's apparently crab grass. My neighbor must be laughing at my husband and I for growing crab grass. Either that or he's mad because he's worried about it taking over his lawn too.

Ok, it's bedtime for me. I should have gone to bed earlier. I feel a vertigo attack coming on and if I don't take care of myself it'll take over me like a .....  darn, can't think of anything funny.  

Good night.

The temperature today  reached 40 celcius, and with the humidity it felt well over 40. I'm really getting tired of it. Matthew and I had to do our grocery shopping at 8:30am an hour later it was already stifling. Yuck. And to top it all off, a toddler is hard to keep indoors. He always want to just go outside in the deck or the backyard.

When is it going to cool down!!!??

Also, from what I hear from many people here on Minti it seems like there's a heatwave all over the globe. Did we bump into the sun or something? Are we melting down?

I hear it's winter in Australia though. I wish I had millions of dollars so I could just fly off over there when it's too hot here.

I was born in the Philippines and came to the U.S. when I was 14 to be with my family (mom & 2 half brothers I never met before this time). Because my brothers didn't speak anything other than English, I gradually used my native language less and less. I attended a high-school that was very diverse, so though I had some Filipino friends, we spoke English all the time so as not to alienate all our other friends. By college, I didn't speak any Tagalog at all. Then I got married to an American and started moving around far from family and friends.

I was only able to visit my native country 10 years later. When I was there, it took me 2 days to get my native tongue back. Within that 2 days, it was very difficult to communicate my thoughts. I had been so American-ized that I even think in English. So during conversations, my mind churned English thoughts 100 words/minute, but my mouth only produced Tagalog words at a snail's pace. Often times it was slower than a snail's pace because I got stuck on translating certain words. Some relatives scoffed at my inability to carry on conversations without resorting to English. After the 2nd day, I was 100 percent better, though I still had trouble with certain words.

Another 5 years has gone by. Now I have a child. I bought Tagalog books to read to him but I quickly found that reading wasn't easy anymore either. I read like a robot, lacking proper inflection and accent. Frankly, it hurt my brain as much as Spanish used to hurt my brain (well, maybe a little less). Now my son will grow up speaking only English. I would have loved for him to learn my native language. I can still teach him easy phrases, like I've done with my husband but it's not enough to make my son bilingual.

It's a little sad, especially when I imagine what relatives would be saying, especially the older generations (my grandmother's brothers and sisters). But there is one thing I haven't lost though...I can still understand the language perfectly fine. I have no trouble translating for my husband when he asks me if someone is Filipino and asks me what they're talking about.

Have I really lost it? I can't really hop a plane and go back just to find out, since my son is only 16 months. A 16 hour plane ride (24 hr travel time) is not something I want to imagine with him.