yeah, blogging definitely took a step back when i started working. first, work started to get to normal.. meaning, no more petiks time for me. just normal ticket/development work. at 10 months in, i've lost the 'excuse' of being a newbie. they've assigned difficult work requests to me now and have my share of hard to understand tickets.
anyway, am inspired by harbie's almost-1.5yo pistoy updates.
with binog..he isn't talking that much.. if i think very hard.. his only comprehensible syllables are 'dada' and 'duck' and 'bo'. 'dada' is used pretty much for EVERYTHING. he points to the ref, 'dada'. he points to the computer, 'dada'. he points to plants vs zombies, that's 'dada' too. oh, he calls his daddy, 'da-di'.. and me? 'dada' too.. how unfair is that? lol!
'duck' is for duck. LOL. we have this ABC chart posted at the wall.. first time i discovered he was recognizing the pictures there was when he and i were 'talking' and i said 'where's the ball?' he went to the playroom (converted from my parent's dining room.. don't ask my parents where their dining table went haha) and i was expecting him to get a ball.. what he did was go to the chart and point to the ball!! you should've seen my expression. I shouted 'MOMMMYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY' and mommy came to me thinking the worst and there i was shouting 'ANG GALING NI BINOG!', or look at my 'GENIUS SON' hahaha. as if. he was soo happy and proud of himself. from then on we taught him the pictures and so far he has memorized A-D, hence the duck. he would point and say 'DUCK! DUCK' (though it sounds more like DAAAK).
another 'genius' moment for me is when I was watching him play his iPad. usually he would just play the sound making (boring) baby apps.. then I saw him open Tozzle (a puzzle app) and complete the friggin puzzle. soooo awesome! i think all babies are capable of this.. binog dragging and dropping the right shapes is so mesmerizing. lol. I'm sorry, its a mommy braggin moment. I remember a waiter also got mesmerized watching binog do this. I looked at him and saw it in his eyes haha.
Being much with his Yaya most of the day, his days are mostly playing and sitting in front of the computer. He INSISTS on playing plants vs zombies but he only uses the right click on the mouse ( i keep on moving his fingers to the left button, but he gets angry at me!) so he can only get plants (didn't even know you can do this with the right-click) and not drop them. so he gets impatient too and keeps on pointing on the Menu screen until we click that and he goes to another 'mini-adventure' or 'survival' game.
I found out his favorite Youtube videos these past days because I have been at home (gavin was circumcised.. another story) and he likes Teletubbies. wtf. i don't know what it is with those weirdos that babies seem to love. He also likes watching Mickey mouse and when he saw Mickey, he got up and went to get his sandals and pointed it to me. He was showing me that his sandals had Mickey Mouse printed on them! (GENIIUUUUUUSSSS HARHARHAR). He also likes these DreamEnglish kids channel in Youtube where this guy, matt, sings and does some actions. I like him too. we play 'Open-Shut them' and he does the never-gets-old trick of opening and closing his hands hahaha. (yeah, close-open for us pinoys. sosyal anak ko, open-shut them eh hahaha, plus close-open doesn't rhyme LOL)
He went to one gymboree class and he was a STAR (for me, syempre). He didn't cry at all and for a first-timer this is quite rare (believe me, Gavin had suuuuchhh a hard couple of classes in Gymboree before he got the groove for it). He threw the ball, climbed the stairs, packed away the toys when it was time to pack away, and went down the slide upon instruction. (other kids won't let go of the ball) He did the tap-tap-tap FREEZE (hands on your head) which is our favorite thing to do now. I recommend Gymboree for every toddler out there. I bought this fantastic deal on those group coupon sites and he'll have a 10 class session.. maybe beginnning July, when his kuya Gavin is ready to go back to wearing pants and can go with us to the mall.
speaking of gymboree, I had a 'wtf' moment. Gladys reyes was there with her son and while our kids were playing, she was nice enough to make small talk with me. 'How old is your kid', that kind of stuff. After answering her question, I was looking at her and was thinking how pretty she is in person. I blurted out my mouth and said 'Ang pretty mo, PALA!' BWISETTTTTTTTTTTT. LOL. I repeated and said 'ang pretty mo talaga' but I think she didn't notice my 2nd sentence haha! She was of course still nice to me (the one who told her in front of her face that she was panget. *bows head from shame*) hayz. hopefully, she won't be there anymore when i enroll Binog full time hahahaha.
Anyway, with regards to Gavin's circumcision. I have noticed a little ballooning in his thingie when he's peeing a couple of months back. I asked raymond about this and he said.. 'maybe dahil hindi siya tuli diba?' Of course, he couldn't remember how he peed when he wasn't circumcised so we thought this was just normal. Then one afternoon, gavin suddenly shouted 'MOMMY SAKEEETTTTTTT' and clutched his thingie. we went to the toilet for him to pee and he was telling me 'sakeet' while he peed. poor thing. (and thingie). so we went to his doctor and found out he has a condition called 'phimosis' (aside from UTI) where his foreskin is smaller than the penis head (or something like that). His ballooning became 3/4s his thingie when he pees and even with peeing every hour, it's just scary. He is prone to UTI because of that (he's had UTI twice already in just about 3 months). So we had him circumcised with what they call a 'smart clamp', a semi-high tech way of doing it. (and less painful). He had to go through General Anesthesia so that was the scary part for him. Raymond came home and provided the much needed support for us faint-hearted ladies. First day was rough, but now Gavin doesn't complain as much (think he complains now to get attention lol). The clamp will get removed tomorrow (he had it for 5 days) so hopefully, his wound healed well.
*sighs*. just glad the worst is over. think we've bought enough apple apps for gavin to survive him being in bed for almost a week. I hope he's ready by the time his school starts, which is on June 13. We'll see his progress after the clamp is removed. He's starting on a new 'medium' sized school called Paref Rosehill here in Antipolo. He's quite excited about that, he tells us he will start his school at the new 'big' school with the big playground. (and keeps on saying 'bye bye smartkids!' that's his old school lol). His entrance assessment there was pretty awesome, btw. Teachers were surprised he could read already. (GENIUSSSSSSSSSSSSS haha sorry, i'll stop now)
that's it for now. a looong update. bye!
this was just right next to our table in the restaurant. nice view, right?
look at me shiny with sweat. lol.
still smiling even thru the heat!
my ever smiling binogski!!
i'm actually showing off my Jeffrey Campbell sneaker wedges here haha!!
see what Gavin is holding? It's a fan with a spray mist.. OMG you should've seen Gavin just spraying himself and he was literally already dripping and he didn't care because it was just sooo darn hot! (gavin is not much of a water baby)
as you can see from our pictures we mostly just walked around and didn't try any rides.. the queues were so darn long and hot! we did go to this cable car ride! it was pretty scary! it was a looooong ride and the wind was strong so the cable would swing sideways wahaha.
here at the Panda center. we stayed here for a while to cool off because it was airconditioned.
my parents came with us!
Here's me smiling so brightly in front of Forever 21 hahaha
There was also an IKEA at Causeway Bay! went there to buy the cheap things (that we don't need but we just THINK we need) at IKEA and eat the swedish meatballs.
This was at night after the kids slept.. since my parents were with us, Raymond and I could walk around and spend some quality time together, just the two of us.
The trick to eating Street Food at a foreign country is to check out what the locals are buying! I did that and it did not disappoint!
This was at the Ferry Terminal.. we first thought of doing a bus tour (but we've already been to all the places included in the tour). Look at me still using the Ergobaby carrier..first with gavin, now with binog.. best purchase ever! I still use this for binog when he doesn't want to stay at the stroller and wants to be carried!
We saw the fishing boats.. this was where the taxi driver dropped us and we thought we were lost so we took a LOT of pictures para sulit just in case we were REALLY lost lol.
It had a very fishy smell but still the breeze was pleasant so we were comfortable there amidst the summer heat. If you walk around you can actually see some small restaurants setting up by the bay. We were afraid to try any of them because we were still hoping at that point to find the Jumbo Restaurant. But at least we knew we wouldn't go hungry there!
here we are in front of the restaurant! we were able to find the free ferry service going to the floating restaurant. BTW, the food sucked HAHAHA! it was extremely overpriced and we had MUCH, MUCH better chinese food around Causeway bay. But the decor was well maintained so it was just good to experience it!
We just took lots of pictures again to compensate for the sucky food haha.
Look at Gavin with his crazy poses!
This was the side of the boat where they kept the live fishes
