sick week

johann was admitted at medical city last june 28-30 due mild dehydration caused by acute gastroenteritis. he was confined for 2 and 1/2 days.

monday night (june 27) nag-start sya mag-vomit. we rushed him to childrens hospital sa er ng madaling araw. they told us na baka UTI, but negative naman result ng urinalysis. it might be something that he ate or since nag-thumbsuck sya bka dirty yung hands nya tapos sinubo nya. so the doctor told us na to bring him sa pedia nya and for the meantime give him oral rehydration salts (ors).

tuesday morning we brought him sa pedia nya (nag-milk sya on the way pero nag-vomit na naman) and asked us kung how is his poopoo and kung may fever. that time di pa sya nag-fever and once lang sya nag-poopoo pero basa sya. she gave us ors sachet and instructed us to do fluid replacement. when we got home nag-milk sya pero nag-vomit na naman. we tried giving him ors pero ayaw nya yung taste. nag-start na syang mag-poopoo ng basa. whole day na ganun hanggang midnight.

wednesday ng madaling araw around 12:30 we rushed him sa er ng medical city para ipa-admit na. feeling ko dehydrated na sya sobra pero pagdating dun mild pa lang pala. they put wee bag para sa urinalysis again and wait kmi ng poopoo nya for fecalysis. nilagyan sya ng dextrose. nabigyan kmi ng room around 3am na, we were assigned in surgical floor kse puno na yung pedia floor. his doctor visited us around 8am. she told us na pag 9:30 di pa sya mag-weewee, lagyan na sya ng catheter. wawa naman johann. so pag-alis ng pedia nya kinausap ko ng kinausap c johann na mag-weewee nya. buti naman at nag-weewee na. nung morning din nag-poopoo na sya. they instructed us na to give him anything na gusto nya except softdrinks. konti lang kinain nya the whole day.

thursday medyo oks na sya. nag-milk na sya and kumakain na kahit konti. malikot na ulit.

friday morning his doctor told us we can go home na. so i settled the bill. while johann was asleep c mama naman nag-ligpit ng gamit. by 12pm on the way na kmi sa bahay. pagdating sa bahay hay naku parang hindi nagka-sakit.

it was a tiring week. feeling ko pati ako magkakasakit. thank God at oks na c johann. mula ng lumabas kmi ng hospital lumakas na sya kumain. he loves to eat rice kahit walang ulam. he eats everything na. kaya ngayon bumalik na ulit yung katawan nya. laki kse ng pinayat nya eh.

family picture

 

Family Picture
By Gary Rosberg

I was sitting in my favorite chair, studying for the final stages of my doctoral degree, when Sarah announced herself in my presence with a question: “Daddy, do you want to see my family picture?”

“Sarah, Daddy’s busy. Come back in a little while, Honey.”

Good move, right? I was busy. A week’s worth of work to squeeze into a weekend. You’ve been there.

Ten minutes later she swept back into the living room. “Daddy, let me show you my picture.”

The heat went up around my collar. “Sarah,” I said, “come back later. This is important.”

Three minutes later she stormed into the living room, got three inches from my nose and barked with all the power a five-year-old could muster: “Do you want to see it or don’t you?” The assertive woman in training.

“No,” I told her, “I don’t.”

With that, she zoomed out of the room and left me alone. And somehow, being alone at that moment wasn’t as satisfying as I thought it would be. I felt like a jerk. (Don’t agree so loudly.) I went to the front door.

“Sarah,” I called, “could you come back inside a minute, please? Daddy would like to see your picture.”
She obliged with no recriminations and popped up on my lap.

It was a great picture. She’d even given it a title. Across the top, in her best printing, she had inscribed: “OUR FAMILY BEST.”

“Tell me about it,” I said.

“Here is Mommy [a stick figure with long, yellow, curly hair], here is me standing by Mommy [with a smiley face], here is our dog Katie, and here is Missy [her little sister was a stick figure lying in the street in front of the house, about three times bigger than anyone else].” It was a pretty good insight into how she saw our family.

“I love your picture, Honey,” I told her. “I’ll hang it on the dining room wall, and each night when I come home from work and from class (which was usually around 10:00 p.m.), I’m going to look at it.”

She took me at my word, beamed ear to ear and went outside to play. I went back to my books. But for some reason I kept reading the same paragraph over and over.

Something was making me uneasy.

Something about Sarah’s picture.

Something was missing.

I went to the front door. “Sarah,” I called, “could you come back inside a minute, please? I want to look at your picture again, Honey.”

Sarah crawled back into my lap. I can close my eyes right now and see the way she looked. Cheeks rosy from playing outside. Pigtails, Strawberry Shortcake tennis shoes. A Cabbage Patch doll named Nellie tucked limply under her arm.

I asked my little girl a question, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer.

“Honey . . . there’s Mommy, and Sarah, and Missy. Katie the dog is in the picture, and the sun, and the house, and squirrels and birdies. But Sarah . . . where is your daddy?”

“You’re at the library,” she said.

With that simple statement, my little princess stopped time for me. Lifting her gently off my lap, I sent her back to play in the spring sunshine. I slumped back in my chair with a swirling head and blood pumping furiously through my heart. Even as I type these words into the computer, I can feel those sensations all over again. It was a frightening moment. The fog lifted from my preoccupied brain for a moment – and suddenly I could see. But what I saw scared me to death. It was like being in a ship and coming out of the fog in time to see a huge, sharp rock knifing through the surf just off the port bow.

Sarah’s simple pronouncement – “You’re at the library” – got my attention big-time.

I hung the drawing on the dining room wall, just as I promised my girl. And through those long, intense weeks preceding the oral defense of my dissertation, I stared at that revealing portrait. It happened every night in the silence of my sleeping home, as I consumed my late-night, warmed-over dinners. I didn’t have the guts to bring the issue up to Barbara. And she had the incredible insight to let it rest until I had the courage to deal with it. I finally finished my degree program. I was “Dr. Rosberg” now, and I guess should have been a big deal for me. But frankly, there wasn’t much joy in my life.

One night after graduation, Barbara and I were lying in bed together and I found myself working up the nerve to ask her a few questions. It was late, it was dark, and as I murmured my first question, I was praying Barbara had already fallen asleep. “Barb, are you sleeping?”

“No,” she said. Rats! I thought to myself. Now I’m committed.

“Barbara, you’ve obviously seen Sarah’s picture taped on the dining room wall. Why haven’t you said anything?”

“Because I know how much it wounded you, Gary.” Words from a woman wise beyond her twenty-something years. At that point, I asked the toughest question I’ve ever asked anyone in my life.

“Barb . . . I want to come home. Can I do it?”

Twenty seconds of silence followed. It seemed like I held my breath for an hour. “Gary,” Barb said carefully, “the girls and I love you very much. We want you home. But you haven’t been here. I’ve felt like a single parent for years.”

The words look cold in print, but she said them with restraint and tenderness. It was just plain, unvarnished truth. My little girl had drawn the picture, and now her mom was speaking the words. My life had been out of control, my family was on automatic pilot, and I had a long road ahead of me if I wanted to win them back.

But I had to win them back. Now that the fog had lifted, it suddenly became the most important thing in my life.

sweet

ang sweet ng mag-lolo…
 

cme

we’ve been to club manila east this summer for 5 times already. 1st nung black saturday, with johann, mamang, tajhing, didi, liaa and family. 2nd nung april 30 with my family and cousins. 3rd nung may 7 kmi lang ni johann, mamang and papang. 4th nung june 4, advanced celebration ng birthday ni mama. kilala na nga ako ng cashier eh. hahaha…

enjoy lang talaga c johann sa water. ewan ko ba. kahit nga lang sa shower ayaw umalis eh… haay…

diner dash

addict ako dito. may registered version pa ko from rudney! thanks bey! mwah!

stay-at-home-mom

 

 

 

What Will I Be?
By Cheryl Kremer

After twenty years of working full-time, I found myself with an opportunity to quit my job and be a stay-at-home mom. As I faced this decision, I felt the stirrings of longing to be more of a mother than a career woman. My seven-year-old daughter and four-year-old son had grown up in the daycare system since they were both six-weeks old. At the time, I never felt any regret in handing my children over to them each morning. I had a great job that I loved and had worked my way up to being the Assistant to the Vice-President of Sales at an Internet company.

I decided to resign and begin my new job as a full-time mom, but it felt strange to lose this part of my identity. The first time I needed to fill out an application for online banking, I came to the line that asked my occupation. I stared at it, not wanting to write “N/A.” Ultimately, I threw the application away, rather than label myself as a “non-worker.” I continued to struggle with this feeling. However, after a few months of waiting at the bus stop, volunteering in the classroom, and making good dinners, I began to get into the whole idea. My daughter was in school, but my son Cobi was with me all day. For the first time in his life, I was all his. We rollerbladed, took walks, played soccer and made crafts. He thrived on this alone time with me and I began to see what I had missed.

One day as we kicked the ball in the park, Cobi looked up at me and said, “Mommy, do you know what I want to be when I grow up?”

“A professional soccer player?” I asked.

“No,” he smiled at me. “I want to be a stay-at-home mom.”

My heart melted. I’ve never looked back since.

mother’s day gift

sarap ng feeling kapag tinatawag ka ng mommy ng baby mo, sa case ni johann “mamammy”. may name na ko sa wakas. gandang mother’s day gift…

barney

i don’t like barney. ewan ko ba. siguro kse nakakatakot itsura nya. mukha syang monster. di ko nga alam bakit daming bata gusto sya. one time we went sa market!market! with cora, ken and cianna. they bought a barney stuff toy for cianna. tapos nasabi ko na mukhang monster c barney aba binitawan agad ni cianna. from then on careful na ako sa pagsabi nun. baka kse katakutan naman sya.

nakakatawa naman ng first time mapanood ni johann si barney, dun yun sa house nila cora, aba di matanggal sa tv ang mata ni johann. kahit harangan ko eh hanap sya ng way para makapanood.

kainis nga eh, di ako naging successful sa pag block kay barney kay johann. nagkaroon ng barney sa local channel kaya ayun pinapanood nila ng mga cousins ko. then may nabili cd si mama na nasa zoo c barney, like nya sobra, isip ko na lang na its because of the animals and hindi si barney. sa ngayon dami nya nang cd ng barney, libre kse sa enfagrow… haay…

friends

with his good friends… though he like jollibee better…

fontana weekend

first time mag-swimming ni johann sa pool nung feb 19 (a week after ng bday party nya). we went sa fontana with rudney’s msf4ever friends and family so daming kids. 4 pretty girls and 1 malikot na boy (c johann yun). it was also my first time to go there. i thought malapit yung house sa pool yun pala di cla nakakuha dun sa compound mismo ng fontana wala na kseng available. oks lang kse laki naman ng house 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and fully furnished pa sya. pero pag tingnan mo sa labas parang di kmi kasya.

anyways, late na kmi nakapunta sa pool kaya malamig na yung tubig. buti na lang bago ko nilubog c johann nilagyan sya ni liezel ng body warming oil. di ko alam na meron pala nun. lumipat kmi dun sa parang river para magamit yung dala naming salbabida. isang ikot lang kami na mabilis kse nangangatog c johann. so after nun binalot namin sya sa towel. rest muna kami. then dun naman kmi sa pool na may wave (pero malayo kmi dun sa wave). upo lang sya dun and nag-splash lang sya ng water. nung gabi nagkantahan sila sa house. may dalang magic sing si corix, kmi ni johann nag-sleep na.

the next day maaga kmi nag-walk dun sa loob ng village. pinuntahan namin yung monument na malapit. we stayed the whole day sa house. tapos ligpit na ng things. before we went home, punta kmi sa office ng fontana to buy souvenir shirt for johann and pasyal dun sa park sa likod ng office. then uwian na.

here’s our pictures