Words

Do you know what a "blate" is? How about "turtow"? "Ko...La!", "Gweegwee"?

Those are some of the words that come out of Ethan's mouth. It takes a few repetitions before I get to decipher the words. And it's fun when you do get to understand what the word is!

The first word, "blate", is actually bulate. He was asked where he and Lolo went during his visit to Marikina. He replied with creek. When asked what he saw there, he replied "blate". Hindi namin gets hehe. So he repeated, "blate". Still confused faces from us. So he said, worm (with the wriggly finger action) and that's when I deciphered it. An "A-HA!" moment for mama :)

"Turtow" is an animal, an amphibian specifically. One of the Wonderpets is a "turtow". Yup, it means turtle.

Perhaps you've heard/seen the commercial/call of ABS-CBN for change. Perhaps you've heard the song "Ako ang Simula". One day, Ethan just sang along with the commercial..."Ako ang Simula" (this is sung on a relatively high pitch)...Ethan burst into song.."Ko...La" hehehe.

Finally, "Gweegwee" is his name. When you ask him what his name is..."Tan...Gweegwee". That's Ethan speak for Ethan Gregory. :)

Gene Pool

First off, it's December! :) It's usually the "busiest" month, with the holidays and kitakits.

On the 5th, Papa and Mama will be going home to Davao. Not sure when they'll be back, Papa will have to request for temporary assignment again.


On the 8th, it will be Mama's birthday (it will be her 57th pohon). On the same day, A and I will attend a former officemate's wedding.

On the 12th, A and I will be watching Lea's concert "Your Songs"...surprise ni A, bumili pala ng tickets after several hints from me. hehehe. I'm quite excited about that!

On the 19th, we will be going home to Davao and celebrate Christmas and the mag-ama's birthday there. Before that I still have to cover the gifts for the kiddos and bake some orders (of carrot cake).

In 23 days, it will be Christmas Eve. Syempre, in 24 days...Christmas day! :)


In 28 days, birthday na ng mag-ama ko. A and I will have a two-year old pohon. And A will be 30 yrs older than Ethan :)

On the 30th, we'll be back in Manila since we'll spend New Year's Day naman dito.


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Now I get to this post's title...the gene pool.


People who know me way back when I was still a baby, i.e., my parents, my titos and titas always say that Ethan looks a lot like me. But for those who haven't seen my baby pics, they always say that Ethan looks like Albert.


Sabi nga ni Mama, kasi magkamukha daw kami ni Albert. Magaling si Lord at pina-partner Niya yung may similarities ang features para ung anak nila fusion ng dalawa :)


Here's proof:

That's me. I was around 14months old then. And here's Ethan:



Here are other shots:

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Ethan is now 33.5 inches tall and weighs 11.7kg. Just recently, his uncle Abet sent some shirts for him, ang cool ng designs :) Though still a bit large, at least he has several shirts in line for him...hehe we don't need to buy him clothes for a while :)

I bought 2 pairs of pants for him from the recent tyangge sale in our office. A pair of kid's pants cost PhP100 at buy one, take one. So, a pair costs PhP50 lang. Not bad because the cloth, though denim, was really soft. Also bought him a pair of shoes. Pag suot nya ung pants and shoes, hay...boy na talaga si Ethan. Hindi na baby. :P still can't resist calling him baby though and kissing him a lot :D privilege ng nanay yan!

Ang daldal na rin...sometimes he babbles words that we can't comprehend but most of the time, he can hold conversations. About dinosaurs (taps = triceratops) and layn kim (lion king). He can dole out complements, "nice!", "wow!", "da" (ganda) and say thank you din ("kyu"). He knows the colors, can count from 1-10. He can solve simple puzzles. And so much more. Kids do know a lot, you can only marvel and be amazed at how much their brains can take in!

Advanced Merry Christmas! :)

So, how was your long weekend? We spent it at home, save for Saturday when we went to SM Sta. Rosa since we had no power from 3AM when the wind was just going crazy. Bagyong Santi was mostly strong wind, not much rainfall (at least in our area). On our way to SM, we saw a lot of trees that fell down, some Meralco posts also fell...it was something like Milenyo. But thank God, power was restored by 8PM (unlike Milenyo where it took days!).

Okay, back to happy thoughts :P

Early Sunday morning, I was baking pancake muffins for breakfast (but we still had rice and sisig hehe). Monday naman, I baked Madeleines. Hay, the pancake muffins were okay but the Madeleines, so so lang...I was expecting them to be cookie-like kaso parang muffin pa rin. I am still a beginner when it comes to baking so I follow the recipe to the dot. That's one thing that I notice with baking (versus regular cooking), I can't play around with it pa. We were just lucky to get this recipe for carrot cake from Allrecipes.com which turns out really fantastic...as in baking goddess fantastic! LOL. So, unting practice pa.

The weekend was also spent playing with Ethan, watching his DVDs with him, eating an apple, some chips, some cookies with him. It was also spent laughing at his antics. Oh, and one thing we're really proud of...he can count from 1 to 10!!! He knows the sequence but he doesn't know how the number looks like yet. So we take it a day at a time. Good thing he stays with Grandma or Lola at home, he gets good exposure to educational stuff.

Ethan also loves to dance! And he's quite a performer, loves it when we are amused with his performance - even requesting for claps hehehe.

He does get mischievous from time to time - getting a bit hard-headed and insists on what he wants. But we get firm with him in a way that he knows that he's not the boss around the house. But in general, he's even-tempered.

He can also hold conversations with us. He babbles while telling us what he and Papa saw during their walk to the park (birds "tweet tweet", rem = worm, with matching wiggly finger, and ants!). Sometimes it takes a few repetitions before we understand what he means but he has his way of making us understand. One time during his bath, Grandma was just waiting for him to finish playing inside the pail. He called out "Mah! Mints". Mama didn't understand at first so she asked him what he wanted, and he repeated "Mints". Seeing that his Grandma didn't understand him, he gestured with his index finger (making it like a dropper) and that's when Grandma understood that he meant Vitamins. Because that is their routine, he will take his vitamins while still inside the pail :)

I could go on and on but what I really want to say is that the little boy is really growing up. Looking at him, I feel fulfilled that I have been part of this miracle, this gift from God.

Baby#2, is that you calling? :)

Going 3-0!

In 2 days, I will be hitting the big 3-0! :P Hmm...milestone.

Turning 30, I wish I could be more of a hands-on mother. I mean, I'm doing my best to be there for Ethan but I feel like it's not enough. I would like to be able to read, play, dance, sing with him more. I'd like to be able to prepare his meals, lull him to sleep, wash his clothes...in short, I'd like to take care of him 24/7.

But that's not currently possible. So I continue to do my best to take care of him when we're at home together. And I really wish my temper doesn't get the best of me.

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My birthday also signals the coming of Christmas for me. In exactly two months' time, it would be Christmas.

I used to think that my birthdate is cool because I have the same day as Jesus's (the 25th). Hehe.

Christmas is almost here and I'd like to start with Christmas shopping hehe. On my list, I've only bought 3 pa lang. I plan to give out baked goodies na lang (like mini carrot cakes or madeleines). This would be DIY gifts - I'm even planning to make the gift box myself.

Hopefully, my plan will push through :)

Choles

One thing that's bugging my mind right now is A's high level of bad cholesterol. (ugh, I know!)

He found out about it on a recent free cholesterol check that they had at work. He couldn't believe it at first so he went for another test and consulted with an endocrinologist as well. Well, the test came out the same - he did have a staggering level of bad cholesterol!

Why the endocrinologist? Because A has a thyroid problem. And he read somewhere that hypothyroidism can cause high cholesterol (slow metabolism and all that!). A used to have hyperthyroidism sometime during college (I didn't know him yet then) and he went for radioactive iodine treatment. His hyperthyroidism stopped alright, but the RIT burned through most of his thyroid, hence, he now has hypothyroidism. (I know, grr, right?)

So, now he is hypo and the endocrinologist prescribed him with hormones to help his system get back to "normal". This hormone supplement will be, sadly, for life. Hay. Sad. But then life has to go on.

And so, this led me to look for healthy recipes online. I saw this recipe for tri-veggie pasta sauce and pesto chicken at the Yummy website and I tried it out last night.

The verdict?

Two thumbs up from the hubby and a ginormous appetite from the kid! I was really glad that they liked it.

They were bitin pa nga because I cooked a small portion of spaghetti lang because I was hesitant that we'd like it - sayang kasi ung noodles. Hehe, nabitin tuloy :P

We thought that the chicken would taste blah, but surprisingly, it turned out flavorful. Of course, compared to the usual fried chicken, it was more bland - si Mama yun ang sinabi, wala daw bang asin. Hehe.

It was also my first time to use spaghetti sauce made from fresh tomatoes (usually kasi store-bought spaghetti sauce). As I was cooking it, I had to add more spices to make it more flavorful. I also used more of the parmesan cheese, instead of salt, to bring saltiness into the sauce.

While I was cooking the sauce, it tasted bland for me. Siguro nga kasi you'd look for the taste of meat that's usually present in spaghetti sauce. But when we incorporated it with the pasta, surprisingly ulit, masarap sya :)

Hay basta, tuwang-tuwa kami ni A lalo na andaming nakain ni Ethan (who usually has poor appetite for solids)!

P.S. I read from Today's Parent website that there's such a thing as "too much juice" which can ruin a kid's appetite. It was a suspect for me kasi before Ethan drinks a lot of juice and ends up with very very poor appetite. Coincidentally, the same day I read the article, Mama also decided to stop Ethan's juice intake muna (and just have it after meals). So as soon as I told Mama about the article, we had data na agad because we observed Ethan's appetite to improve agad. *Me and Mama have really connected brainwaves I think hehe*