Have you seen the Fuwa mascots of the Beijing Olympics? They're sooooo incredibly cute!!! I like Huanhuan and Beibei the best. In fact I plan to start calling Anton Beibei. =D Wish I could have at least one plush toy. Who's your favorite Fuwa?
...a tall glass of ice-cold czech beer. (yes, a tall glass, not a mug.)
as you know, i have not had a sip of anything alcoholic since december 2005 when i learned i was pregnant--well, perhaps save for a tiny-tiny sip of my dad's beer while we were killing time in grappa's reposo st., waiting for an exhibit to open.
hay. i SO need beer right now. been craving for the last couple of weeks na, actually.
kahit hindi czech. and hindi na sa grappa's.
kahit cerveza negra man lang. yum.
loves me.
loves me...NOT.
photos courtesy of Jun Tobias
you're probably wondering why i have amidala's pic here, right?
well, this was pretty much how i looked (sans the elaborate hairstyle,headdress and costume) after anton gave me a head butt that caused cuts on my upper and lower lips. it bled and swelled but applied an icecube to it and helped somehow. now it's reduced to this clotted wounds on my upper and lower lips not too unlike amidala's fancy lipstick style.
i've actually been greeting A and my dad happy father's day ever since june started; this is an overdue post. dug up a photo i'd taken of A early last year when we were still in our QC apartment. had wanted to make him subject of this portrait painting i was supposed to make for an mfa class. anyway, i dropped the subject, so i never got to do the painting. needless to say A was a most unwilling subject--probably because he was too self-conscious. he kept making kenkoy faces while i was taking the pics. anyhow, i was able to capture a couple of pics i really like. it captures a side of him i think people don't really get to see a lot (because he is always kenkoy or when he's intense, he's too scarily intense)--a pensive one. wish, though, i had better lighting inside the apartment.
me!
i had the most outrageous dream last night. i dreamt i was one of the contenders for the next pussycat doll.
my dream started with the first day of the challenges. apparently I had overslept, and all the girls were already in this ballroom of the hotel. there was a queue, and the girls were all writing down something in these passport-like booklets. turns out they were filling out resume forms. because i was late, i didn't get any booklet, and i then i realized there was another girl who was in the same predicament as i was. the only difference was--and it made me self-conscious--she was able to take a shower before coming to the ballroom: her hair smelled freshly shampooed.
i ask one of the organizers for a booklet for myself and the other girl, and of course they give me the run-around for being late, and suddenly it's time for the first challenge (challenge?!!! parang "amazing race"?).
there was this jet li lookalike who was brandishing what looked like a bamboo pole. he moved this way and that, until he stopped in front of me, his intense eyes engaging with my gaze while he proceeded to spar with me.
well, it did look like he wanted to spar with me--it was the only thing i could make of the situation. so, spar with him i did.
and then i realized just how badly out of shape i was. my arms and legs felt weak as i did my best to swing a kick at him and parry his bamboo pole with my arms. surprisingly, though, i made quite an impression on the audience, because there were oohs and aahs from the audience. i was able to deal the jet li lookalike 2 blows, and it seemed enough for him to give up on me and move on to a next sparring partner.
would have wanted to know how i fared with the judges, if what i did was enough to get me through to the next round, but there was a loud sob and a well-enunciated "mam-ma" that pierced though my consciousness.
anton had woken up.
there went my bid for being the next pussycat doll.
p.s. this is what i get for setting the tv on sleep while watching "the search for the next pussycat doll".
i swear. the day anton hit his ninth month, he's been bouncing off the walls. i could never get him anymore to keep still for a photo, even if for just a couple of minutes.
there. i did it. texted my boss i finally decided to quit.
after 10 semesters (five years), i'm not teaching anymore! not this sem, nor the next nor ever. i think.
and strangely i don't know how i feel about it.
as soon as i posted my first list, i thought of some more:
1. that you will most likely get (if you have the same number of friends as A and i do and invite them to your baby's christening) around 6 pairs of shoes all of the same size that realistically, the baby will use for just a couple of months. and of these 6 pairs, your baby will most likely use only 2. (babies really don't seem to like shoes so much). the lesson of the story is for you to strike shoes off your shopping list for baby's layette; you will get more than enough as gifts.
2. that babies can survive without pacifiers. i let anton suck his thumb, or sometimes, even his whole hand, and then i don't make much fuss about it, like by taking his thumb off his mouth, for instance. i let him do whatever makes him happy, and he doesn't get fixated with it. or i give him a toy to keep his hands busy. i believe babies without pacifiers learn to self-soothe themselves earlier, and consequently, they're more emotionally intelligent.
3. A and i believe in co-sleeping with the baby. we co-slept with anton for two months. after that, he preferred the crib. he would motion by rolling his head to the direction of the crib when he's breastfeeding at night. or in the daytime, when i'm holding him up in a standing position on my lap, he will drop his head to the side, to indicate he wants to rest in his bassinet on the playpen. he started doing this quite early; prior to that he only slept in his crib for naps. what's important is for you to learn to read your baby's body language from day 1. babies incredibly know what they want at an early age and they figure out ways to tell. so if you notice him doing a movement repeatedly enough, you can be sure he's trying to tell you something.
4. that babies do have a secret language. babies will first learn to say ah-goo. i got this from " what to expect during the first year" and it's true! the book was printed in the US and it was true with my baby, even if we are not an english-speaking household (we're more tagalog, ilocano and kapampangan). so it must be true with babies all over the world. and before they learn to speak, they will have a stock of syllables they will utter, and it will change week after week. it makes sense; as if they're practicing the basic sounds they will need later to put together to utter words, regardless of language. and you don't even have to buy books to decipher baby's language; it's all logical, you only need to listen closely because the baby will tend to associate an utterance with some need or some complaint.
5. babies thrive in affirmation. everybody in the house claps and cheers at anything anton does. people tell me what a happy baby anton is. i think our family's constant affirmation is to thank for that. anton hardly cries, unless he's really hungry or uncomfortable. he is rarely cross, and if you talk to him and look him in the eyes to explain, for instance, that he will have to wait just a bit, he will wait.
6. babies love conversation. we talk to anton all the time. even yaya talks with him, not down to him. he will be a very talkative child, i think. he seems elated when we pretend to understand all his babblings. sometimes, i think we even really understand his babblings.
7. babies love to play with real stuff, not baby stuff. anton likes remote controls, cell phones, pillows, plastic cups and other household items. to him, these are toys. so i just give them a vigorous wipe-down with alcohol if i can't wash them. luckily, anton doesn't put things in his mouth much anymore. but i still have to take care his hands are clean when he puts them to his mouth after playing.
8. bottles of alcohol are handy to have in every room of the house, when you have a baby in the house.
9. babies will constantly test your limits. it's always gonna be a never-ending struggle between him getting his way and you giving up. a firm "no" and a serious look works for me somewhat, though sometimes i am tempted to laugh out loud because he looks funny when his face scrunches up when he's being reprimanded.
10. watching baby is not much different from teaching--motivating and stimulating--18-year-old college kids; in fact, i think that it was probably my best preparation for motherhood.
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