Only in my Dreams

I have been having these strange, vivid dreams in the past few days and incidentally all of them were about me back in my elementary school days at WMSU. I can’t recall the entire details of the dreams but I do remember the gist of it.

Dream #1: The whole Grade 6-T class was abuzz with news of exchange students coming from outside the country. I was curious too because they were going to be in my group, the Rainbow Kids. And here comes the exchange students, Amorn and Chaowarith from Thailand. Huh!?

Amorn and Chaow are my Engineering counterparts in MTHAI. I wonder what event could have triggered them being showcased in my dreams?

Dream #2: I was back in Grade 6 but I was already 3months pregnant. My bestfriend in elem., Christine, was also pregnant with her second child. She already has a 2-year old baby girl running around playing while we were having lunch inside our classroom. When the child turns around and faces me, she looks like the exact carbon copy of my sister Miriam!

It would not take a genius to figure out why I had this dream. Just the night before I was relating to Carl and Miriam some of the funny stories of Miriam when she was in her baby-toddler years. With a seven-year gap, I can clearly recall all the “nasty” things I was doing to my baby sister. =) From the eating her baby food episode (one subo for Miriam, two subo for Ate. And my mother would always wonder why Miriam is still hungry after I feed her. Now you know. ;-)) to making takas in the afternoons so I can go play with my friends (ayaw namin ng saling-pusa! Hehehe!). I can still remember how I could hear Miriam cry when she wakes up from her afternoon nap to find me gone. I’m such a bully but I do love my sister very much. She will always be our baby. =)

Speaking of dreams, Carl is also having dreams of his own. He once told me of his dream where he was a chef and he was cooking chicken curry. “Sayang hon, palpak yung luto ko”, he said. Syempre naman, I had to “bait” him. “Sige nga hon, magluto ka nga ng chicken curry.”, I said. And he took my bait! =) We had chicken curry that evening and it tasted pretty good. My hubby is turning out to be a better cook than I am! Not that I’m complaining – I am always willing to be the dishwasher. =)

Doldrums...

It was another ordinary day in the office and there I was brushing my teeth after lunch when suddenly… Wait, there’s something different with my face… Hmmmm… I move closer to the mirror… My nose is BIGGER!!! Sometimes these physical changes that comes with pregnancy just gives me the doldrums. Yeah, yeah. Its all part and parcel of being pregnant and like Carl says, its my body’s way of preparing for our little one but c’mon! Honestly, how would you feel if all the while you thought that the bulge just below your belly button was your growing baby only to have your doctor place the Doppler not on that bulge but way down below it? The bulge is a bilbil not the baby! And I was so looking forward to taking pictures and document the size of my bump starting this month but I can just imagine future conversations with my kid…

Child: Mommy, is that me when I was at your tummy at 3 months?
Me: No anak, that’s just mommy’s bilbil.

Ugh! I really should have gone into medicine to save myself all these ignorance and disappointments. Remind me again why I chose to be an engineer? Ah yes, because I thought my course was about COMMUNICATIONS ala Mass Communications not about antennas and semiconductors. And that’s another price I have to pay for my ignorance.

Anyway, on the brighter side of my bilbil story, we got to hear our baby’s heartbeat for the first time last Saturday. It was going so fast! =) The doctor recorded it at 150bpm – that’s about twice the normal heartrate for adults! It was really fascinating and Carl got to hear it too! Yey! =) The doctor gave a lot of advise for us first-time parents. Let me see if I can recall all of them.

1. Just buy 12 sets of baby clothes (4 sleeveless, 4 with sleeves, 4 longsleeves). The baby will outgrow them quickly. Choose white colors so that it can be used again for the next baby.
2. Start buying pampers dry or huggies dry when its sold at a discount. Get the M-L sizes because Carl is huge so our baby may also be big. Hehehe. =)
3. When bottle feeding, invest on the nipples – not the bottles.
4. Buy a wooden crib. Its more durable and hindi maalog.
5. Invest in a good quality, sturdy stroller. Pick the large one coz toddlers would still like to ride it.
6. Be financially ready. Prepare Php100,000 for childbirth – this will also cover emergencies. (Note: It only costs Php 7000 to give birth in the municipal lying-in clinics. A saleslady at Robinson’s told me.)
7. Have frequent sex on the 37th week of pregnancy. (Yes, its true.)

We are due for another check-up next month and I have just graduated from taking folic acid vitamins to iron+folic acid vitamins. The doctor also gave me a long list of food to avoid – coffee, tea, softdrinks, too sweet, too salty. Remember to drink my meds and Anmum everyday. Also eat lots of fruits and vegetables. As for food cravings… Well, I think its okay as long as its in moderation. Just last week I had this intense craving for dinuguan and dilis. =) Thanks to my officemate from Batangas who was kind enough to send me some dinuguan from their fiesta handaan. I was in seventh heaven that day! =)

My sis will be arriving from Zamboanga this Sunday and with her is my care package from Papa consisting of fresh fish – samaral, tanigue and yellow-fin tuna. =) Kainan na naman. Yahoo! =) Kaya naman pala lumalaki bilbil ko eh. Hahaha! =)

Happy New Year from Laoag!

Its final. The next time we visit Laoag with our baby in tow, it will be by plane. I just can't seem to get the hang of sleeping in a moving (make that jarring) 9-hour bus trip to Ilocos. Arriving in Laoag in the early morning of the 28th made me feel like one of the zombies in the "Night of the Living Dead". Well, what else can be expected from a 2-months pregnant woman that just came from a 1.5hr plane trip from Zamboanga (which was delayed!) and a 9hr land trip north? All I could think about was bed and breakfast. Of course, I had to eat first -- our baby was hungry. =) (Its so nice being pregnant, I can say all of my food binges are for the baby. Hehehe.) Long story short, I was fast asleep (more like comatose) the entire morning and got up just in time for lunch. Again, I have to feed our baby so my internal body clock was working pretty well when it came to eating times. =)

Coming from opposite ends of the Philippines do have its advantages. Number one advantage is food. While Carl and I stuffed ourselves with all the seafood in Zamboanga, in Laoag we are greeted with a whole set of different flavors. There's my #1 favorite the Ilocos orange empanada with papaya and egg filling served on a paper bag dripping with oil... Yum! Yum! Yum! I swear, pinaglihian ko talaga ito. =) And then there was all the food that was prepared for our "mini-reception" in Laoag. We had all the dishes you can prepare from goat - kilawin, papait and kaldereta, lechon, embotido, etc. etc. My Ilocano blood runs strong with my cravings for papait. I had 2 rounds of papait that evening and I had another round of papait for breakfast the next day. Sarap! =)

Speaking of our mini-reception, I was really amazed at how "bongga" it turned out to be. We had lots of food, we prepared a slideshow of our wedding for the guests, we had games for the kids and adults, there was videoke and singing up to the early hours of the morning. Whew! Of course, it was all thanks to Papa C and Mama R for making it such a success. =)

New Year in Laoag was noisy and smoky and fun, just what a New Year should be like. =) We went to church on the evening of Jan. 1 where I had to reign in one of the more embarassing "side effects" of pregnancy -- flatulence. I swear, its so embarrassing! There are days that I'm going at it every ten or fifteen minutes! Thank God, I'm successful at keeping it discreet when other people are around. But if its just me and Carl -- I have coached him to say "Music to my ears" and "Wonderful aroma" to soothe my embarrassed ego. Hehehe. =)

May 2009 bring in more blessings to all! God bless!

P.S. I have originally intended to post this at Friendster blog but I got pissed off at how slow posting and uploading is there. My previous posts are still in Friendster but I'll try transferring them here.