Motherhood Takes Away My Pride

First, Yaya left Via's milk can open.  Second, the other maid left the bug spray on Via's table where all her feeding equipment were.  The second blew my top off.  I was raging mad.  Of all the things one can do, it is posing harm to my Via that would somehow make me topple the place over.  I was really mad yesterday morning while preparing for our weekend trip to Tagaytay.

I think I said some nasty stuff that people weren't used to.  So the nanny was crying in the van.  I also felt bad but most of all, still mad about the whole thing.  After an hour or so, I was thinking about how she really cares for my Via.  She wasn't the one who placed the bug spray. It was another maid but still, it was her responsibility (and so was mine - but I was in the bathroom at that time and I could not have stopped the other maid from doing that).

She was sniffing in the car and then she spoke that she was leaving at the end of the month.  And that made me more furious.  I was thinking that this girl doesn't care about my Via because she doesn't have second thoughts in leaving her behind.

I've done some thinking and I have come to the conclusion that even though the nanny and me have some differences, we both love my daughter.  And I can sense that in her.  I can fully trust Via to her as much as I can trust my own mother.  She has no complaints in losing sleep at night because of my daughter.  And as my mother has said, she had never seen someone as sensitive with the needs of my daughter.

And so, I was preparing to apologize for my behavior that morning.  

I don't mind being the person on the lower end of the pole.  If it's for my daughter, I'm okay with it.

After finding out that she wasn't feeling well that morning due to her menstruation and she was a bit woozy (because she really have these symptoms even before), I apologized and gave her a sisterly hug.   She hugged me back and that was it.

Insulting Post By James Soriano

Thanks to Targrod (Twitter) for sharing this one to me.

I was really insulted with this article especially when no one really talks to me in English! LOL!

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"Filipino is not the language of the learned." -- James Soriano
In celebration of Buwan ng Wika, we get THIS article from Manila Bulletin.

Language, learning, identity, privilege
Ithink
By JAMES SORIANO
August 24, 2011, 4:06am

http://mb.com.ph/articles/331851/lan...tity-privilege

English is the language of learning. I’ve known this since before I could go to school. As a toddler, my first study materials were a set of flash cards that my mother used to teach me the English alphabet.

My mother made home conducive to learning English: all my storybooks and coloring books were in English, and so were the cartoons I watched and the music I listened to. She required me to speak English at home. She even hired tutors to help me learn to read and write in English.

In school I learned to think in English. We used English to learn about numbers, equations and variables. With it we learned about observation and inference, the moon and the stars, monsoons and photosynthesis. With it we learned about shapes and colors, about meter and rhythm. I learned about God in English, and I prayed to Him in English.

Filipino, on the other hand, was always the ‘other’ subject — almost a special subject like PE or Home Economics, except that it was graded the same way as Science, Math, Religion, and English. My classmates and I used to complain about Filipino all the time. Filipino was a chore, like washing the dishes; it was not the language of learning. It was the language we used to speak to the people who washed our dishes.

We used to think learning Filipino was important because it was practical: Filipino was the language of the world outside the classroom. It was the language of the streets: it was how you spoke to the tindera when you went to the tindahan, what you used to tell your katulong that you had an utos, and how you texted manong when you needed “sundo na.”

These skills were required to survive in the outside world, because we are forced to relate with the tinderas and the manongs and the katulongs of this world. If we wanted to communicate to these people — or otherwise avoid being mugged on the jeepney — we needed to learn Filipino.

That being said though, I was proud of my proficiency with the language. Filipino was the language I used to speak with my cousins and uncles and grandparents in the province, so I never had much trouble reciting.

It was the reading and writing that was tedious and difficult. I spoke Filipino, but only when I was in a different world like the streets or the province; it did not come naturally to me. English was more natural; I read, wrote and thought in English. And so, in much of the same way that I learned German later on, I learned Filipino in terms of English. In this way I survived Filipino in high school, albeit with too many sentences that had the preposition ‘ay.’

It was really only in university that I began to grasp Filipino in terms of language and not just dialect. Filipino was not merely a peculiar variety of language, derived and continuously borrowing from the English and Spanish alphabets; it was its own system, with its own grammar, semantics, sounds, even symbols.

But more significantly, it was its own way of reading, writing, and thinking. There are ideas and concepts unique to Filipino that can never be translated into another. Try translating bayanihan, tagay, kilig or diskarte.

Only recently have I begun to grasp Filipino as the language of identity: the language of emotion, experience, and even of learning. And with this comes the realization that I do, in fact, smell worse than a malansang isda. My own language is foreign to me: I speak, think, read and write primarily in English. To borrow the terminology of Fr. Bulatao, I am a split-level Filipino.

But perhaps this is not so bad in a society of rotten beef and stinking fish. For while Filipino may be the language of identity, it is the language of the streets. It might have the capacity to be the language of learning, but it is not the language of the learned.

It is neither the language of the classroom and the laboratory, nor the language of the boardroom, the court room, or the operating room. It is not the language of privilege. I may be disconnected from my being Filipino, but with a tongue of privilege I will always have my connections.

So I have my education to thank for making English my mother language.

Via turns 9 months

I love her. She can now play with other kids - particularly, her cousin, Kuya Gab.

Serendipity

I'm here in SM Hypermarket. My mom and I were supposed to go to Facial Care this afternoon but we were late with our appointment and so we had to cancel it.  We rescheduled the appointment tomorrow at noon. Instead, my mom decided to go to Let's Face It so she could have her pedicure, manicure and foot spa and anything else she could think of. LOL!  And since I already got dressed while waiting for her at home, I said I'll go and accompany her.

While waiting for her, I sat inside a coffee shop (Bean and Baker).  I called my husband and found out that he was also here in Hypermarket to get his tennis rackets "stringed".  We got all excited of course.  We were so happy that we were in the same place at the same time. And so, I got a hug today.  I'm so happy.  The hug was better than the coffee I was drinking.  It'so comforting.

Pardon me.  It was just a plain hug.  And of course we were slightly in hiding.  I don't want people to look at us and think that we were boyfriend and girlfriend getting mushy in public.  We were husband and wife (not technically since we are not married) living separately.  Sigh!  This set up is so hard but we will live.

But I'm so happy now, sitting here in Bean and Baker.

Strolling In Resorts World

Kuya Gab and Ate Via 

Once the car started moving, they started behaving.

First timers in Resorts World.

We run off to the second floor because of the cigarette smoke 

we smelled emitting from the Casino at the Lobby.

Stopped by for lunch at Tao Yuan

It was crowded that time.

Via gets a hug from GrandMommy

"Mom, can you let me down for once?"

My daughter, when you're carrying her, she keeps pushing you away.
There was a time when she almost fall off because she pushed me so suddenly.

Mom! That camera is too close to my face!

Is there dirt in my face? LOL!

Yaya Analyn and Kuya Sergio

They look hungry as I am.

My sister and her family

My parents and my sister and her hubby

We were almost done and the restaurant is almost empty.

My sister's family

My daughter looking spiffy in her pigtails.

We left our parents inside the Casino

My beloved yaya Jane. 

I want this wall in my room (LOL!) 

Scare all the rats away (if there's any... scary!!!)

Kuya Gab wants a coin to throw in the fountain.

Video: Enjoying Her First Oreo

Via eating her first Oreo and me and my grammatical errors LOL!

It's Okay To Be Messy

My baby is enjoying Oreo for the first time.

"Wait, I don't think I messed up my hair yet.  There!"

You want some?

Well, try to get it from me if you can.

Mommy CamWhoring in the Bathroom :)

My beloved camera.  

As good as any DSLR LOL!

My Corner in Tagaytay

I spent in the breezy (and sometimes, chilly) attic since the time we came home yesterday.  I went straight to this corner of the house to spend time alone.  I just go down whenever I hear my baby crying (which happens so often) to see if she's doing okay and whenever I have to get coffee from downstairs.

I love it here.  I wish our village never gets crowded like where we live in Manila.

Via Recommends Human Nature Bug Spray

I just decided that I'll be starting a "Via Recommends" Series in this blog.  

Tried and tested products that my own Via uses and (almost) cannot do without.

I was looking for mosquito repellents for babies but the ones in the groceries are for toddlers and up.

But I think my Via needs one fast because I see her having these wheals in some part of the body with a punctum proving that a bug has just bitten her (oh so supple teehee!) skin.

I passed by Beauty Bar and they had one like this.  

Since it's organic, it is okay to use for babies.

I just make sure NOT to put anything on her hands and face and toes.

But I place just enough amount on everywhere else.

It's Philippine-made too.

TV and Chocolates

Via can now appreciate TV shows  Well, some of them, anyway.  When she went downstairs to have lunch, she glided beside her Kuya Gab to watch the cartoons that he was watching.  They were so behave and attentive watching Nickelodeon together that it was such a nice site.  Usually, the nanny is running after Kuya Gab and Via is always asking to be carried around.  

Thank you Nickelodeon!

Good thing, they didn't mind me blocking the TV from their sight.

Husband bought this for me.  

I love it when he feeds me (Oink! Oink!)

May not be a big deal to others, but in our family, it is.  

Sunday Playtime

Her grandfather told me to clean her up because she looks untidy.  

I frowned on that one especially when I just gave her a bath just a few minutes before that.

I think it was because of her unruly hair. 

I told my father, she smells better than anyone in the room. LOL!

"Mommy, can I eat this?"

"I can't seem to take a bite."

"Let me try again... nope, I can't get a piece."

"I need more toys... if you want me not to bother you."

"Mommy, I want to show them my powder puff."

On Her Plate At 8 Months

She's so easy to feed these days.  

It's like everything I put in her mouth is okay with her.

I hope it goes on and on until she's all grown up.

We started to give her oatmeal.

And since she prefers to grind her gums on hard objects,

we bought her this kind of hard biscuits too. 

And now that she can sit up on her own, we tried to sit her up in Kuya Gab's old feeding chair.

She fits in perfectly.

Walker Fun

She is finally maneuvering her way throughout the den.  Whenever her nanny leaves her in the den with me, she heads straight to the radio to change the channel or volume.  I just watched her from my desk.

"Move over, Via."  LOL!

Getting a visit from Kuya Gab (her 3 y.o. cousin) before he got dressed for school that morning.

By the way, Via's walker is a hand-me-down from Kuya Gab.

Thanks Kuya Gab!