But that all changed when the bear arrived. I’ve come to realize that birthdays (her birthday in particular) are special.

As a mother, I have learned to appreciate birthdays as celebrations of life and love. Meia’s birthday is an opportunity for me to remember how one (lunar) year ago, the bear came into this world (a few weeks early I might add) and made Pao and I feel like the luckiest — and most sleep deprived — people on earth. While I cannot deny that the rest of the world kept turning on the day of Meia’s birth, it wasn’t quite the same world as it was the second before she was born. For one, it became less painful (I was finished with labor after all).

Happy chinese birthday, little one. I know, I know, it’s just your birthday according to the lunar calendar, but I can’t help it. I get all teary-eyed whenever I think of how much you’ve grown over the past (lunar) year. From a 5 pound eating and pooping machine you are now a 17 pound eating and pooping machine. From being asleep most of the day and awake most of the night, you now know when exactly to sleep (just as we are about to leave the house) and when exactly to wake up (when I am about to sleep). You are now smarter and more efficient in your mommy annoying ways and I love you more for it. Your arrival has made the world more beautiful, more colorful, more challenging, and more rewarding.

As I’ve mentioned here, I gave birth 37 weeks and 3 days into my pregnancy.

That morning was like any other. I woke up, checked to see if she was kicking (due to my paranoia, I’d gotten into the habit of counting kicks) and proceeded to nest clean the house. By noon, I started feeling a bit weird, like I needed to go to the bathroom. The right side of my belly felt a bit tight but I dismissed it, thinking it was nothing.

[That's how smart I am. I've been having contractions since I was 2 months pregnant and I couldn't recognize one even if it went up to me, said hi, and introduced itself as a contraction. In my defense, I remember the intern from my last hospital stay telling me that the whole belly tightens up during a contraction. Since only the right side was tight, I reckoned it was nothing. Brilliant, Shaps. Just brilliant.]

By 3pm, I discovered an old keyboard cover for the husband’s Mac. It used to be white, but was now an awful shade of gray. I went to the sink and started to clean it vigorously. I must have spent around an hour trying to get all the dirt out.

By 5pm, I realized I was bleeding. It wasn’t like the spotting from before – there was more blood now. Tummy was still getting tight every now and then and I still felt like going to the bathroom. For the first time though, I didn’t want to check myself into the hospital because (wait for it) I wanted to watch American Idol. Ha.

I've had a music crush on Steven Tyler since I was in high school. Picture credits: http://www.sexysteventyler.com

I waited a bit for the bleeding to subside but it didn’t. After a while, I told Pao we needed to go to the hospital. I also called my OB. My doctor told me that I might be in labor but I was like, nah. No contractions! Aren’t contractions necessary for labor? Toink.

By 630pm, the intern examined me and asked me if I was in pain. Apparently, my water bag already ruptured (when it happened, I had no idea) and I was  5 cm dilated. The baby was arriving! And I didn’t get to shower before going to the hospital, dammit! The doctors estimated that I’d give birth around 1am the next morning.

By 9pm, the anesthesiologist arrived. They wheeled me into the operating room so she could hook me up. (No way was I going to do lamaze.) I was still feeling a bit chatty. I wasn’t in pain but I started getting uncomfortable.

While waiting for a space between contractions so the anesthesiologist could insert the needle, my OB arrived. Then it got painful really fast. This must be how Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) felt in Aliens, I thought. My OB examined me and we were all surprised to find out that I was already at 10cm – the baby was crowning! The resident had to run to get to Pao, who was waiting in the room with my mother-in-law, to make sure he witnessed Meia’s birth. He almost didn’t make it.

And at 9:45pm, after 3 hours of “labor”, the bouncing bear made her debut to the world. She was small and wrinkly and beautiful and perfect.

By 10pm, she was wheeled in the nursery and her bassinet was placed next to a baby boy’s. Pao claims that she scowled at the other baby and he started to wail.

Fifteen minutes old and already making her first boy cry. That’s my girl.

The pregnancy was difficult, to say the least. I had contractions (that I did not feel) as early as 2 months. Four months in, I was spotting regularly due to a polyp I developed presumably due to the pregnancy hormones. The good news was that it was the sole source of the bleeding (hence Meia was safe and sound). The bad news — we had to be cautious and treat each spotting incident carefully. We had to make sure each incident was caused by the polyp and not the baby. To be safe, my OB put me on bed rest. The deal was I can only go back to work if 2 weeks pass without any bleeding. As I’ve mentioned before, I ended up remaining on bed rest for the rest of my pregnancy.

Sometime in my second trimester, I also got food poisoning. I was vomitting and having bowel issues at the same time, and was so afraid that Meia would starve that I rushed to the ER. After 12 hours on the IV, I was sent home. Meia was ok. Whew!

My contractions carried on for the rest of my pregnancy. I was drinking medicine to help stop it, to no avail. In any case, I remember my OB said, as long as I don’t have 4 contractions in an hour, I should be ok.

Thirty-two weeks in, 2 days before Chinese New Year, ayan na. Around noon, I had 3 contractions in the space of 30 minutes. Pao was at work so I had to call my Mom to bring me to the hospital. I wasn’t too concerned. I remembered from birth class that if I was about to give birth, the contractions were supposed to hurt — radiating pain was the term, I think. I took a bath and made sure my labor bag and cordlife documents were ready. When I got to the hospital, turns out I was already 2 cm dilated and if we didn’t stop the contractions, I was going to give birth soon. Yikes!

I remember getting a bit annoyed with Meia then. When Pao and I discussed having a baby, we planned it in such a way that I would give birth on the year of the Rabbit. While I’m not much of a believer in Chinese astrology, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to follow it this time around. I was born on the year of the Monkey, so supposedly I wouldn’t get along that well with one born in the year of the Tiger. And lo and behold, the little one insists on making her debut on 2 days before the start of the year of the Rabbit. Kakaasar.

After more than 24 hours in the labor room, the doctors were able to stop the contractions. I was then placed on strict bed rest — meaning no walking unless I have to go to the bathroom. I could only stand up after I hit 36 weeks, but we weren’t hopeful I’d remain pregnant for that long. Still, each day the bear remained in the womb was another day that would better prepare her for the outside world. (Plus, it was already year of the Rabbit :p)

Oh, and did I tell you? I hadn’t done any shopping yet! My 2nd baby shower was scheduled around my 34th week and I was waiting for that before I did any shopping. Sure, we had the big ticket items. We bought the crib locally after Mothercare failed to get ours from London (that’s another story). My breast pump and Meia’s carseat finally arrived. But that was about it. No onesies, no tie-sides, no bonnet, no swaddling blanket, no diapers, no nothing. So I had to send poor Pao to the department store to get all these things himself. Thank god his mom accompanied him that day.

On my 37th week (yes, I reached 37 weeks!), I got off my butt and started to walk around the house. We put stickers in Meia’s corner of the room and I started cleaning. On my third day off bed rest, I gave birth to the bouncing bear. But that, my friends, is another story.

Melton talked about the two kinds of time: Chronos and Kairos. Here’s an excerpt:

“There are two different types of time. Chronos time is what we live in. It’s regular time, it’s one minute at a time, it’s staring down the clock till bedtime time, it’s ten excruciating minutes in the Target line time, it’s four screaming minutes in time out time, it’s two hours till daddy gets home time. Chronos is the hard, slow passing time we parents often live in.

Then there’s Kairos time. Kairos is God’s time. It’s time outside of time. It’s metaphysical time. It’s those magical moments in which time stands still. I have a few of those moments each day. And I cherish them.”

You can read the rest of her article here.

Since our nanny is currently enjoying her month-long vacay (8 days down, 25 to go!), and our all around maid, N, who graciously took over the nanny duties, was training her substitute, Paolo and I decided to bring Meia to Little Gym on our own.

I won’t lie: it was tiring. How a small infant can have so much energy is beyond me. Plus, someone apparently told her it was opposite day so she did her best to drive us insane. Case in point:

• When the teacher asked her to tap the tambourine, she cried and hung on to me for dear life. Later, when the teacher dismissed the class, she crawled towards the tambourine and started tapping it like there was no tomorrow. We had to pry it from her little hands and drag her away from the gym since the next class was about to start.

• Meia is also the youngest in her group - she is the only one who still can’t walk on her own. Although she does like it when we hold her by the torso and let her practice “walk.” We do this all the time at home. Sometimes, this is all she wants to do an entire afternoon, much to the dismay of our aching backs. (I don’t think I’ll ever stand straight again.) When it was time to “walk” in class, Meia started crawling. She kept complaining and wriggling out of our arms until we finally gave in and let her crawl.

• Perhaps out of consideration for Meia, the teacher asked all the students to do a bear crawl. Now, Meia is an expert bear crawler – been bear crawling (if such a term existed) for the past 3 or so months. What does she do come bear crawling time? That’s right. She stops. moving. completely. Dammit.

So by 11pm, Pao and I were zonked out. We would have slept too, had Meia not woken up every hour until 6am. Argh.

The next day, we were at it again. This time, we brought Meia to Bonifacio High Street. While Pao was parking the car, Meia and I were in Gap taking advantage of the air-con when we saw this:

http://www.gap.com/browse/product.do?cid=59902&vid=1&pid=726318&scid=726318022

Ugh. It was too cute. I had to let her try it on. And she loved it. And so, we bought it.

Babies are so difficult to take care of. They cry a lot. They need to be fed every 2-3 hours. They poop at the most inconvenient times. They crawl when they should be walking, walk when they should be crawling. Just when you thought you could sneak in a shower while they are asleep, they decide to wake up and make a terrible fuss. And no, they don’t stir just as you are about to go into the bathroom, that would be too easy. They wake up crying after you’ve taken off your clothes, stepped into the shower, and while your hair is full of shampoo.

But ask a parent how it is like to have kids. Usually, they’ll tell you it is one of the most wonderful life-altering experiences. They’re not lying. It’s just that they are remembering those moments in Kairos time and these moments more than make up for the otherwise frenetic day they just had.

It’s like going home exhausted from Little Gym, going through the pictures in your camera, and seeing this:

Meia, after a good spinach meal

Or buying an expensive pair of sunglasses for your almost 11 month old, putting it on her, and seeing this:

Artistahin

Kairos.

So yes, I miss our yaya very much. I hope she comes back as promised.

Whenever I’m stressed, I find myself looking for sweets. The other day I bought a bag of 20 pieces of Goldilocks Classic Polvoron. Goldilocks polvoron is my guilty pleasure. I’ve tried other kinds of polvoron, even those that claim that they are “gourmet”, but in my opinion, they don’t hold a candle to Goldilocks polvoron.

http://www.goldilocks.com.ph/

This isn’t the bag of polvoron I got. I bought the one that came in a plastic bag instead of a box  I prefer that because the pieces of polvoron inside are wrapped in yellow cellophane and not vacuum sealed. It’s hard to get the polvoron out of the vacuum seal bag – I end up scraping it against the bag and scattering crumbs all over myself. Sayang. Plus, call me old fashioned, but there’s nothing quite like the experience of unwrapping polvoron like candy. I’m salivating just thinking about it.

Yesterday, I ate 4 pieces of polvoron. FOUR. If Paolo didn’t stop me, I think I could’ve eaten the entire bag. Right now I’m dreaming of eating more of them. Which got me thinking, how many calories are in 1 piece of polvoron?

Uh oh. According to My Fitness Pal, each piece has 130 calories! Which means that yesterday, I gobbled 520 of them! Yikes.

Yaya better come home soon. Stress is making me fat!

I take after my dad.

Don’t get me wrong, my dad does not lose stuff either. Except for the office files which he needs to keep track of, he dumps all his other papers in a drawer. Back when I was still in grade/high school, each summer, I would always (begrudgingly) help out my parents at home. The task I dreaded the most was cleaning my dad’s drawer and trying to make sense of the papers found inside. I would literally spend days putting everything in neat little piles. What makes the task more difficult is the knowledge that in 2 month’s time, the papers would be completely disorganized again.

Fast forward 15 years later, I am taking care of my own household. My papers – just like my father’s – are all over the place. Sure, they are all contained in a box (or two, plus a couple of envelopes over there…) but they are not categorized properly. The best way, I figure, is to put each kind of bill or receipt in an individual folder and arrange them all by date. Have you tried doing that to 4 years worth of receipts? It’s impossible.

While trying to look for organizing inspiration, I came across this poster over at Organizing Made Fun:

borrowed from http://organizingmadefun.blogspot.com/

This will be my new mantra. I will no longer aim for perfection when it comes to cleaning and organizing the household. I have a 10 month old to look after, after all.

So armed with a new sense of purpose, I went to National Bookstore and bought myself one of these cheap expandable envelopes.

They’re ugly (hate those squares at the back – why can’t they just make it out in all black?) but I didn’t want to shell an extra PhP50 for a nicer looking one (the term “nicer” is relative. the other available folder was in tweety yellow. ugh.). The plan is to label each of the dividers for every month of the year and to put all paid bills for a given month in the designated slot. No more folder for every kind of bill. It’s faster and more efficient.

I’ll be working on our manuals and warranties next. I’ll try this tip from The Complete Guide to Imperfect Homemaking. Wish me luck!

But some things must be said. And people should be warned. So (deep breath) here I go.

Astoria Plaza, what the hell?!?!

We decided to book Astoria for New Year’s Eve to get away from the smoke. It seemed like a great idea — Astoria was near the house so we could easily run back in case we forget something. The rooms were spacious and a 2 bedroom suite cost only PhP7,485 a night and came with breakfast for 4.

Before finalizing our reservation during the first week of November, I inquired with Astoria whether they would provide cribs for babies. They said yes, they have some cribs for the use of their guests and will note our request in our reservation. I also asked if they could provide a king size bed instead of 2 twin beds in the master’s bedroom. They also agreed and noted it down.

For those who are unfamiliar, Meia is currentlly 10 months old. She doesn’t co-sleep with us, hence the need for a crib. In case the crib didn’t pan out, we were also considering letting her co-sleep for that night, hence the request for a king-sized bed.

The week before New Year, I called Astoria to confirm whether or not they can provide the crib. The person I spoke with over the phone (sayang I didn’t get her name) assured me that it was “noted” in our reservation. When I asked her to check whether the cribs were still available, she said she couldn’t do that. Not to worry, she told me, they “noted” it down.

If only the bear could have slept on their notes, we wouldn’t have had any problems!

On the morning of December 31, I called Astoria again to see whether the crib was available. The person who picked up the phone told me once again that it was noted in our reservation. At this point, I replied that that answer was unacceptable – couldn’t they check with housekeeping if a crib was available? They put me on hold and after a few minutes informed me that there were no cribs for the day. Apparently their definition of some cribs is one crib and it was being used by a long staying guest. I told them that if it was a long staying guest, then they could have told me when I reserved and when I called again that week that the crib was unavailable instead of giving me the usual bullshit about noting it down.

Since Astoria was near the house, Pao and I decided to check in first with all our things, then come back home to bathe Meia (so we don’t have to bring her bath paraphernalia) and pack the playpen.

Big mistake. When we got to Astoria at around 2pm, the place was full. We waited a good 15 minutes in the hot and humid basement just to ride the elevator to the ground floor. When we got to the reception area, we saw that there was a long and winding queue to get into the elevator.

So I checked in. While waiting for my room, another lady talked to the receptionist and followed up on her room. She claimed that she had been waiting for 30 minutes already in Astoria’s cramped lobby, and she had a little boy in tow who was getting cranky. I’m not that good with ages, but I’d say the little boy was around 3-4 years old. If you’ve been to Astoria, you’d know that the lobby is very small. I think they only had 4-5 chairs there for guests who are waiting to be checked in/out. And the lobby was FULL. Another girl beside me followed up on the rooms for her relatives - she told the receptionist that she was already considering cancelling their reservation since she couldn’t make her relatives, who were already old, wait in the car for that long.

The receptionist checks us in without mentioning any of the items noted in our reservation. No mention of the crib, no mention of the king sized bed.

And yup, you guessed it. We were given twin beds instead of the king sized bed. I called the Front Desk and you know what they said? That I could easily push the twin beds together to make a king sized bed. Wonderful customer service, I tell you. So at this point, I’ve had it. I used my lawyer voice and got really mad. I told them that part of my consideration for staying at their establishment was their promise of “some” cribs and the king sized bed. I told them that they better fix things and to call me back in 10 minutes with a viable solution.

Of course 15 minutes later, they still haven’t called. I decided to call front desk (I couldn’t storm the front desk, given the long wait for the elevators). They told me that they’re sending people to fix the twin size beds – they’ll put a sheet or something like that so that Meia won’t fall in the middle when the beds are combined. And.. that they’re also sending a crib. The crib and the housekeeping staff are on their way and should be in our room anytime soon.

“Anytime soon” for the housekeeping staff came 20 minutes later. As for the crib? Well, when Paolo called to follow up more than 30 minutes later, the person he spoke to began by saying: “Eto po ang nangyari…” (This is what happened…) which is a bad sign. He got as far as the crib being delivered to the wrong room and other guests seeing it before Paolo blew his top and told them to get the crib and deliver it to our room within 20 minutes, or else.

The crib came and according to Pao (I was already home by this point, trying to figure out how to pack the playpen), it was the dirtiest and saddest playpen he’s ever seen. He took some pictures but according to him, these didn’t fully capture how awful the playpen looked:

Ugly, ugly, ugly. The netting looks like bugs have gotten to it already. We sent it back immediately.

The next morning, at breakfast, we overheard the same lady with the 3-4 year old boy, ask for a high chair. The waiter told them that they only had 1 high chair, and that it was already taken. Coming into the ballroom, I counted at least 5 children who needed high chairs.

The sad part is that when we checked in, I asked the girl at the front desk whether this was the first time they were fully booked. She said no, it’s been like this every year during the holiday season. And yet, they still haven’t fully understood that they have guests who are children and who have special needs. How difficult is it to have 5 playpens on standby? Those things don’t cost a lot. Same goes for high chairs.

Shame on you, Astoria Plaza. Shame on you.

Edit: On 17 January 2012, Arnold of Astoria Plaza gave me a call to apologize in behalf of the company. He says that they are working on making Astoria more child friendly – they have made some purchase requests for children’s beddings. While it does not erase what happened, I’m very thankful that they took my complaint seriously and that they are trying to rectify the situation.

Back then, I worked in a mid-sized law firm in Makati. I was used to the busy, fast-paced work environment, having had been in law firms for the past 4 or so years. I was just recently promoted and work was piling up and I loved it. So you can imagine how I felt when all of a sudden I had to stop. I wasn’t used to doing nothing all day.

I immediately bought a 1000 piece Beatles Abbey Road jigsaw puzzle to keep me occupied. I paced myself – I only allowed myself to put together 100 or so pieces each day. After all, it was supposed to keep me entertained for 2 whole weeks. No cigar – by day 6, the puzzle was completed and I was bored out of my mind.

And then I rediscovered wrestling.

I used to watch WWE (then WWF) back in grade school. I got the habit from my mom who was a huge fan. I remember I even watched the Undertaker and my crush, Adam Bomb (don’t look at me that way, I’m sure you’ve made lapses of judgment as well) in Araneta when they came here.

The WWE kept me sane during the remaining 5 months of bed rest. I even remember watching WWE in the labor room, while they doctors were trying to stop my labor (the bear wanted to come out 8 weeks too early). Back then, I loved seeing Randy Orton in action. I swear, Meia would kick every time his music played.

I got Paolo hooked on WWE as well. We love watching it so much we bought the bear official merchandise.

Meia wearing her Awesome onesie

Meia’s now 9 and a half months old. Paolo and I are still watching WWE religiously. Much has changed in the WWE since Meia was born. CM Punk and Daniel Bryan are now the champions (WWE Champion and World Heavyweight Champions, respectively), Zack Ryder (WWWYKI) won the USA Title from my current fave – Mr. Perfect meets Shawn Michaels Dolph Ziggler, and Cody Rhodes (bless his heart) is finally wearing knee pads. One thing that’s still getting to me though is the absence of Brodus Clay. I really like Brodus Clay. He reminds me of Benjie Paras, don’t you think?

From brodus-hq.com and http://www.abante-tonite.com/issue/july0311/showbiz_jg.htm

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