SB

scat-ter-brain

n.

A person regarded as flighty, thoughtless, or disorganized.

According to ex-pregnant women and pregnancy books, an expecting mother may suffer from the Scatterbrain syndrome. Being a forgetful person even before I got pregnant, I was very worried about experiencing this.

At the start of the pregnancy, Ramil would tease me about having the scatterbrain syndrome whenever I forget something. I would, of course, deny this vehemently. For the past few weeks however, I couldn't give a very strong protest everytime he would tease me. Some evidences of the said syndrome:

- I would forget where I put things

- I would forget things that I myself have scheduled to do

- I would forget meetings that I set

- lately, while discussing in front of my students, I would pause to get my thoughts in order because I've forgotten what I was saying a few moments ago

- increasing frequencies of this: "Ny..., ay nevermind, I forgot my question."

- there was this time when a minute after saying our prayer before a meal, I turned to him and asked him, "Nagpray na ba tayo?"

- the final straw would be losing Ramil's cellphone. I forgot that the phone was inside my pants' pocket and it seemed that it fell out without me noticing it

Compared to other pregnancy-induced discomforts, I would say that this would be the least debilitating. However, I've been messing my work, losing things, and looking like a completely incompetent idiot. Unfortunately, no remedy for this one except to maybe keep a little notebook to write things down (which I always forget to do). It would be so great if I could just have a little device which would record all thoughts that goes on inside my head. Or maybe... er, I think I've forgotten my next brilliant idea.

to those who want to do a little RAK

A former schoolmate needs prayers and help. To all those who are in the habit of spreading the love, please visit this blog.

for our little boy

To my dear Mateo,

Three months to go my angel and we would finally be able to look at each other's faces. Hang in there little one and don't grow too big. Get a nice good position so you can come out of mommy's vagina instead of mommy's tummy.

Daddy and I were talking the other day about how we want you to grow up and the things that we want you to have. We are more scared of making a mess of rearing you, that you might grow up like some of our undesirable students. Some mommies at this point would say that they just want a healthy baby but I'm not that kind of mommy. I would be a hypocrite if I say I just want you to be healthy because I want so much more for you.

You don't have to be a baby genius or maybe your class valedictorian someday but I hope you'd get what reciprocals are after a 45-minute period with your teacher. You don't have to be the most behaved student but I hope you'd understand what we mean and what other people mean when they say NO. You don't have to be an athlete or a well-coordinated boy but I hope you don't move sluggishly, dragging yourself everywhere.You don't have to be a great public speaker but I hope you know and learn to say please, thank you, and sorry. You don't have to be a popular kid in school but I hope you learn to make friends and to value their friendships. I hope you learn to respect people no matter who they are, where they came from, and what their status in life are. I hope you learn to nurture your strengths and to accept your weaknesses. I hope you learn what it means to love and to treat a girl right. You don't have to earn big bucks when you're older but I hope you earn enough to support yourself and your future family. I hope you learn to enjoy life whether it's good or bad. I hope you learn to laugh at yourself and to take things in stride.

All these things and a lot more are what I want for you. I am now at a loss on how to help you have these things. You are our first child and I hope we do right by you. But whether we succeed in rearing you properly or not, we love you, we will always give our best to you, and even though we might have difficulties or misunderstandings in the future, we will always have only your best interest at heart.

Love,
Mommy

filthy rich

No, we are not lotto winners nor are we Deal or No Deal contestants. In fact, Ramil and I struggle every month to make ends meet. We’ve loaded our credit cards (unnecessarily, hehe!) and we have unpaid loans. Our combined salaries every 15^th and 30^th are used up even before we get them. We are currently having trouble setting aside money to be able to have enough for my January normal (Lord, please!) delivery, not to mention things for the baby. And except for our small baby money, we have nothing, zilch, nada.

We would often blame ourselves for everything. We barely had enough for our wedding and yet we optimistically pushed through with it. We chose to get a place of our own to rent instead of living with our parents despite our limited resources. Hence, we have rent, electricity, water, groceries etc. to pay every month. We don’t regret it though, the whole set-up has made us feel like we’ve been married for years. We’ve adjusted beautifully to being married to each other without outside influences which can sometimes complicate a newly-weds' life. We’ve learned so much more about each other because we are almost never apart (we are also workmates). And yet, we couldn’t get enough of each other. For this we consider ourselves rich.

Our life is made even more complicated with our unexpected blessing. We didn’t really plan to conceive as early as now and we have to admit, we were apprehensive at first. With the desire to give as much and the best to our baby, our almost negative net worth seemed so much more glaring. But as the months passed, experiencing our baby’s development together, we grew confident that this is actually a silver lining amidst our cloud of financial difficulties. For this we consider ourselves rich.

Even before we knew we were pregnant, our parents continued to look after us after the wedding. Ramil and I are both from QC and since the school where we teach is in Antipolo, we moved to Rizal. With the sky-high prices of gasoline today, we can only afford to visit our parents at least every other weekend. These visits would always result to us going home looking and feeling like refugees, hehe! We would have numerous pabaon before leaving. They would cook special meals in larger quantities. My mom would give me clothes or bring me shopping after learning that I am very kuripot in buying maternity clothes. We would even sometimes get things for our house or simple necessities like bigas, hehe! As early as now, our parents are even volunteering to baby-sit (meaning go all the way to Rizal) everyday if I decide to go back to work next school year. My mom even told me she would supply our baby with diapers and that she’ll be the one to buy a crib. Even my sister treats me with little things such as a pedicure. For this we consider ourselves rich.

Despite being so far from our families, God sends people to look after us. We have our ninang & ninong (who are also our employers but treat us like family), our co-workers, our students, and even our students’ parents. One particular student’s parents have been continuously giving me ensaymada, fruits, puto, kutsinta, etc. after learning that we are having a baby. These parents have been treating us like part of their family. For this we consider ourselves rich.

In one of our conversations last week, I asked Ramil, “Yayaman kaya tayo?” He answered me with “What do you mean by yayaman?” Then I realized, we might not be able to have the new car that we want or a house of our own for our growing family or to be able to eat out anytime and anywhere we want, but yes, we are already filthy rich.

sweets for my baby

I had my monthly pre-natal check-up last Friday. I was reprimanded by my doctor to take it easy, with food. During my check-up before this, I gained 6 lbs in 4 weeks and last Friday's check-up revealed that I gained 7 lbs in 5 weeks! This means cutting down on sweets. Awww....

of floods and black-outs

I haven't posted anything in more than a week. For lack of anything to post, I'll give our own milenyo experience. The storm last week gave us (me, actually) a bad scare. Though in the aftermath, we realize that we were actually one of the lucky ones.

Being teachers, Ramil and I welcomed the announcement of no classes. We planned to spend Thursday doing nothing and getting a lot of much needed rest. We started the day on a lazy note, woke up at 9:30 am, had a late breakfast at 10 am and lied down on the sofa bed, savoring the cold weather. We both fell asleep and woke up again at around 1 pm to have lunch only to discover that the electricity is out. After lunch, we lied down (again!) on the sofa bed while the storm outside raged on. We can hear the branches and fruits hitting our roof (we have a backyard that has a lot of fruit-bearing trees). I remembered our atis fruits which are still hanging from the trees, I mourned for I know they will only be pulps on the ground after the storm. Several banana trees which are starting to bear fruit also went down. In other words, our backyard and garage is a total mess. We continued to rest (lied down again) in preparation for all the cleaning up we would have to do once the storm is gone.

At around 3 pm, the storm outside was finally settling down. We looked outside and saw water, lots of water on the streets. For those of you who don't know, we live in Taytay, Rizal. Our place rarely gets flooded but other areas of Taytay can be flooded with waist-deep water during really heavy rains. Our landlady texted me to start arranging our things just in case. The water continued to go up along with the fear inside me. Ramil was totally calm, having experienced floods in his younger years. I was a flood virgin, my experiences with floods are limited to what I see on TV. Still, we followed our landlady's advice and started putting things up. The TV and DVD player went on top of the dining table, our shoes were all packed in a big plastic bag, everything that can get wet goes up. The water continued to go up really fast and our next concern was the red car. Despite the car being pasaway and all, we love her and we were really worried because our garage is a few steps lower than our house. Meaning, if the water continues rising, the car would suffer before our house. Ramil and our neighbor decided to just stick a styrofoam in the carburetor to prevent the water from going in. Still, the water continued to go up. It seems that some people in charge of opening a pumping station that diverts water to floodway forgot(?) to do it (what timing, in the middle of the storm pa!).

Ramil started humming and singing, trying to divert my attention from all the water outside the house. I was close to getting hysterics so Ramil told me to go inside the bedroom to lie down, sleep, and forget about the situation. But try as I might, I couldn't fall asleep. I kept asking him whenever he would peek inside the room whether water is inside the house already. His answer was always no but after a few minutes, I felt the need to go to the bathroom and saw water inside the kitchen! Our kitchen and bathroom are an inch or two lower than other parts of the house. I looked at Ramil accusingly and all I got was a smile. With my bladder ready to burst, I grudgingly wore the rubber boots given by our landlady and went to the bathroom. After my bathroom break, I was broken down and resigned. I could cry and throw a tantrum but if water continues to go up and enters our house, I cannot do anything about it. I looked outside and saw that the street is actually thigh-high deep in water already. Some kids were actually swimming! (I wonder where their parents are?)

When the water was just a few centimeters from entering our house, it finally started to go down. By 5pm our electricity was back and water is going down, hurray! By 8 pm, all the water was gone. It went up so fast (because of the damn pumping station) and went down just as fast (because they finally opened the damn pumping station).

It was quite an experience for me mainly because of all the scare I had, hehe! The next day was again a no class day for us, yey! We woke up early this time and started cleaning up the backyard and garage. The house was spared except for the kitchen and bathroom and our red car was also spared (the water reached up to the edge of the carburetor). Sabi na lang ni Ramil after everything, charge it to experience! :)