Yesterday, I saw in Facebook that the second helping of the cartoons will be out soon.

I am so excited. I can’t wait to see it!!!

In their New Year episode for 2012 entitled Tailgate, they focused pretty much on the father story.   Marshall spent his new year by the grave of his dead father while watching the games of the Vikings.   This reminded me of dad.   No, we didn’t go to Tailgates, but everything and anything about dad pretty much reminds me of daddy.  There are so many times during the Holidays when I wished that I could just see him again, talk to him and hug him.  I miss him so much it hurts.  Lily is pregnant and when she told her dad about it, she just got an “OK. Thanks! Bye!”  She felt so bad and felt that her dad let her down.  The following day, her dad showed up at their door step with a huge teddy bear congratulating her.  It turned out that her dad was so excited, didn’t have time to make chitchat over the phone and drove all the way to their new house just to congratulate her.  It made me cry (not teary-eyed but cry as in cry like hagulgol cry) which of course upset my dear husband (as always when he sees my crying).  I just miss my dad so much.  And as always, I relate myself to Lily and thought “what if I became pregnant, I don’t have a dad to share it to.”  Daddy died to soon. *cries*

Then I said to myself, well, I still have my mom, my sisters, my friends and my husband to share it with if ever that will happen.  I will not allow myself to wallow in loneliness.  I will miss him still but life will go on.  Come to think of it, daddy is more “approachable” now.  I can talk to him anytime and everytime I want.  He is now my guardian angel.

I miss you so much daddy.

It seems to me that she got bored after some time because they just do the same things every week – sing, dance in circle, sing, jump in place, dance, etc.  So eventually, she just stayed in the middle of the circle and did her own thing.

Her parents decided to transfer her to the other school.  In this new school, she has classmates who needs special attention.  One time, one of her “special” classmates pulled her hair which traumatized her a bit.  One day, she came home showing her Mama (my mom), her hand.   My mom was busy talking on the phone at work, so she said “Wooow!!!”, thinking that the teacher gave Moira a star.  But the persistent baby girl said, “No, Mama.  Look!!! Enzo bit me!!!”  And my mom was shocked.  My poor pamangkin who never had the experience on this kind of things is having her first taste of violence in school.  I was horrified and was mad when I discovered what happened.   My initial reaction was, “Ha?!? Ni hindi nga natin masaktan yan sa bahay tapos ginaganyan lang sa school?!?  Ilipat niyo na yan ng school!”.   I literally cried when I heard that her classmate pulled her hair.  I was so mad at the teachers in school and the classmate’s yaya.  The special kid was admitted with the condition that the yaya will always be inside the classroom.  But I guess the yaya thought that the teachers were around naman, so they left the kid in the classroom without supervision.

But I guess kids will be kids.  They don’t know yet what they are doing.  That’s why it is the adults responsibility to discipline the kids.  Maybe it’s really hard to be parents.  You really have to know how to balance everything.

Well, I just missed my very intelligent niece. *sigh*

Last Christmas, when I went home, she already knows how to sing a Christmas song she learned in school:

“Long time ago in Bethlehem (she will sometime sing it as Dethlehem), so the holy bible says

Mary’s boy child, Jesus Christ, was born on Christmas day (she will sometime sing it as Christman)

A man will live forevermoon (she always says forevermoon instead of forevermore) because of Christmas day

Hark, now hear, the angel sing, a new born king today (she sometimes sing it as toonday)…”

She is soooo adorable.   Here is a picture of her during her Christmas play in school where she played as an angel.

Moira as an Angel in School

See you soon, baby!  Ninang misses you, a lot!

Each couple had a team color: Mejillas – blue, Remorins – green, Urlandas – orange and Manalos – red.

Mejillas - Blue Team

Remorins - Green Team

Urlandas - Orange Team

Manalos - Red Team

Of course, the main highlight of the party are the games prepared by the game master, Lynn.  Good job!!! *clap! clap! clap!*

1st game: Office Tennis Winner – Remorins (Green Team)

2nd game: Deep Throat Winner – Urlandas (Orange Team)

3rd game: Shoot the Key-Key Winner: Mejillas (Blue Team)

4th game: Bangkok Has You Now Winner: Manalos (Red Team)

5th Game: Shake Your Booty Winner: Remorins (Green Team)

The video orientation for this clip is wrong and I am still finding a way to correct it.  So meanwhile, I will post the Manalos’ video for this game:

The game names are not the official names.  We just made them sleazy to make it more fun.

All the other videos are in YouTube.  I have uploaded it under username gilmanbelgrade.  Enjoy!!!

After the games was the legendary White Elephant Exchange gift.  It was probably the longest exchange gift giving I have experienced.  Everybody touched everyone’s gifts.  LOL. We sure had lots of fun.

Friends + Food + Games + Gifts = One hell of a Christmas Party.  Next year ulit!!!

The first time Gil and I spent Christmas together was in 2007 when we moved to Singapore.  We decided to have this tradition of collecting Christmas ornaments (a pair for each year)  to hang in our Christmas tree.  We then put the year under the ornaments to help us remember for which year we got that said ornament.  Since 2007, we now have 5 ornaments in total hanging in our tree:

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

We intend to do this tradition forever as long as we both shall live.  Hehehe.   I wish we get to have kids so that they can be part of this tradition.   And as years go by, we may need to get a bigger tree to carry all our  ”Christmas-love” ornaments.

Whatever happened to our family this year, Christmas should be celebrated.

Advanced Merry Christmas everyone!!!  Advanced happy birthday Jesus!

Let me recap what happened to us this year:

1. My still very strong grandfather died last April. He was diabetic and had a wound on his foot. He was confined to the hospital for a routine procedure for his foot. It seemed that he was not given enough anesthesia and he had a hard time during the procedure. The doctor gave him additional dose of anesthesia while he was hypoglycemic (his blood sugar was really low) and they continued with procedure. After the procedure, the doctor said that he can be discharged that afternoon. They doctor left him to sleep and rest. The nurse came to get his vitals. Suddenly he has no pulse at all. So while he was passed out, we suspect that he had some kind of heart attack. They were able to revived him after 30 minutes but he was on a coma.  After less than a week , he died.

2.  My dad had his first heart attack end of April.  He was on a business trip in Iloilo and was confined in a remote hospital for 1 week before he was allowed to fly home.  He had more attacks spread out in the following months.

3.  My brother in law, Ate Min’s husband of just 5 (or is it 6?) years, died of a car accident.  He was driving in the highway and was trying to take his exit when another driver didn’t allow him to do so which caused him to swerved to the left lane where a construction truck was parked.  He was DOA in the hospital.  He left my very young sister and 2 nephews (a 6 yo and a 4 yo).  Sorry but I may have missed the ages but you got the idea.

4.  Dad then had his angioplasty on July 2011.   He again had a heart attack while he was in the table so they didn’t proceed with the procedure.  After 2 days, he had the the successful angioplasty.

5.  After less than a month, he had another attack.  He was rushed to the hospital and was in the ICU for less than a week.  He had another cardiac arrest on his 5th day in the ICU.  This took his life.  (See related post “I Miss You, Daddy”)

6. After 2 monts, my sister Joan gave birth to her 2nd child.   After 3 hours, the baby turned blue with erratic heartbeat and abnormal oxygen level.  She was admitted to the NICU and stayed there for 11 days.  Thank God that the baby is now home.

After a few times of postponing our Phuket getaway, we scheduled it this long weekend.   And I was really excited about a week ago.

But then, on Tuesday, a certain” problem” came up and I was soooo stressed.  For those people who know me very well, they can attest to how easily-stressed I can be.  I felt like the whole world was conniving against me  so that I will not be able to enjoy my lloooonnnnggg-awaited vacation– oh well, that is a little OA.    It was petty (as others may see it) but I felt that there was much inconsideration in what happened.   I will just blog about it in another time, but it will definitely be a protected post.  Hehehe.  Sorry, as much as I want to satisfy the intrigue that you are feeling right now, I still value whatever relationship I have left with that person.  I just need time to get over it.

Okay, moving on….. the problem has been solved (so I conclude that the world is not against me) so I am again excited for our vacation.  Woohoo!!!   I will blog about it when I get back.  Enjoy your weekend guys!!!

However, we were really surprised with the food that was served during the flight.

I managed to take some pictures of the food served using my iPhone:

Dessert

"Salad"

Main Course: Chicken, Veggies and Rice (not much difference from what they are serving before)

Utensils

Disposable Coffee Cup

The food comes in this "lunch box".

The food on my flight back was even worse.  I was somewhat embarrassed when the foreigner beside me amusingly said “Is this our dinner?”:

Meal Box

Main Course: Chicken, Veggies and Rice

I read in the news today that the airline is apologizing for the current inflight catering service.  The employees on strike are barricaded by the building where they house their catering. Now, I feel that it is better to take to take budget airlines or SIA.  I hope PAL settles their problem with PALEA.

PAL is our flag carrier.  I wish they get back on their shoes and make us proud when they say “Thank you for choosing Philippine Airlines, Asia’s first!”.

I was delayed for 1 month but every time I did the pregnancy test, it would be negative. I read in some forums that sometimes it happens that the amount of the hCG in the urine may not be enough to trigger the test to show as positive. So I hoped. We decided to go to the OBGyn to have it checked. It turned out that I was not pregnant but instead my egg cell did not mature for it to break into a period. My heart sank and I was so devastated, I was zombie-walking out of the doctor’s office and even forgot to pay the bill (don’t worry, I realized it a few steps outside the clinic and went back to pay).

Yes, I also want to buy pregnancy kits, which I already did so many times. Those times when my period was late and I had the tiny bit of hope that I maybe pregnant. I wanted to see the + sign but I have not. I had my share of tears every time the result was negative. There were times in the past when seeing a negative result would bring me to tears and left me in depression for some time until my period is missed again.

Yes, I also want to share my good news to friends and post my positive pregnancy test result pics in Facebook, Twitter and Instagram but I don’t have anything to share. I could relate to Marshall and Lily (How I Met Your Mother) and Bill and Giuliana Rancic when they were trying to conceived. I was even using Lily’s words: “Gil Manalo, put a baby in my belly (from Lily’s “Marshall Eriksen, put a baby in my belly”). I cried every time a friend told me they were expecting — both of tears of happiness and a hint of envy. I never knew such feeling of both happiness and envy mixed together existed. Believe me!!!

I wanted to shout to people “I’m pregnant!!!!” but instead I got tired of people asking us “O kelan kayo magbe-baby?” or “Wala pa bang laman yan?”. I got so pissed that I even didn’t want to go to parties because people would ask the same questions. Hello?!? I almost wanted to snapped back to people but we only smiled back instead. If only conceiving were as easy as putting on my panties. I loudly blurted out “WHAT THE FUCK!?!” when Kelly Preston announced she was pregnant at 47 years old. Some relatives even suggested for us to have us checked if there were any “problems” and we did go. Gil is OK, and as my OBGyn said, “habang nireregla ka, may itlog ka. So mabubuntis ka!!! ” She refused to have me tested further. She said that it was too early for us to worry. We were just married for a year during that time.

I wanted my husband to experience talking to my belly. I felt the pain when people jokes to him “Di ka ata marunong e”. My husband, the good person that he is, would just smile back. I was scared that my husband would leave me someday because we cannot have a baby.

Counting the ovulating days in the calendar was a monthly task. Lovemaking had become a routine and wasn’t enjoyable anymore. There was even a time when I wished that there is some kind of a “sperm pill” which I could just swallow every time I was ovulating. I was tired and worn out.

I started to ask questions. I began doubting. I tried to convince myself, that it was not time, that God has a plan. I started to deteriorate. I was like an empty shell — laughing outside but hollow inside. When my husband saw this, he talked to me. He said that the baby is not something that God owes to us. If God will give it to us, then he wants us to have the baby. If not, then we may have other mission in life (like maybe help other children someday). He told me that having a baby is a blessing. And he is right. Just like all other things in life, having a little one is a blessing from God.

Gil assured me that he does not mind spending his life alone with me without a baby. The most important thing is I am healthy. This is again a realization that my husband made me understand. I am diabetic. If I get pregnant, then it is automatically considered a high-risk pregnancy. According to http://emedicine.medscape.com, infants of mothers with preexisting diabetes experience double the risk of serious injury at birth, triple the likelihood of cesarean delivery, and quadruple the incidence of newborn intensive care unit (NICU) admission. In all women with preexisting diabetes mellitus, there is a 9-14% rate of miscarriage. Furthermore, major birth defects occur in 1-2% of the population. I cannot imagine bringing a baby into this world with health problems caused by my diabetic condition. My heart is just too weak for that. My conscience cannot bear that thought that my child will suffer for life because of me.

I can see clearly now. I realized that it’s OK. I don’t cry anymore when I see the first sign of my period every month. I want to go to parties and mingle with people. I just smile sincerely and joke when people ask us why we don’t have a baby yet.

Yes, I also want to be a mom but I want to conceive naturally. Our stand as husband and wife is that we will not try all these scientific procedures. We have nothing against these procedures, but we want the conception to be natural – no IVFs. As what the author of my previous post says, the way God intended. We definitely will not adopt.

We will let God do his plans. He makes all things beautiful, in His time. My faith is strong enough to move mountains. I once told my mother-in-law, “Kung bibigyan po kami ng anak ng Panginoon, kahit po wala akong matres, magkakaanak po kami. (If God were to give us a child, I will conceive even if I don’t have uterus).”

So for now, it’s just me and Gil — just us two.

I want to be a mom. But I can’t. Instead, I’m a mom wannabe. I want to procreate. I want to conceive a child naturally with my husband, in the privacy of our come, in the spirit of love and passion, in the way God intended. But I can’t. Instead, a Doctor, a laboratory and a test tube will try to assist God with our conception. I want to discover that my period is several days late. I want to buy a pregnancy test and pee on a stick. I want to see the + sign. I want to cry tears of joy for the news we’d discover. But I can’t. Instead, I cry tears of pain at random, for no reason and with no warning. I want to experience morning sickness. I want my hormones to go haywire. I want the `pregnant glow.’ I want to have my husband talk to my belly. But I can’t. Instead, I try not to look pregnant. I don’t buy clearance clothes for next year, “just in case.” I try to keep my emotions from going haywire. I dream that my husband talks to my belly. I want to take pre-natal vitamins. I want to eat for two. I want to schedule my first doctor’s visit. I want to sit in the waiting room with other pregnant women and know that I am one of them. But I can’t. Instead, I wonder if those pregnant women ever had problems conceiving. I think how cute they look as they waddle with their big bellies. I smile at babies that are not mine. I ache from loving someone I’ve never met. I want to hear the Doctor say, “You’re pregnant. Your progress is right on schedule.” But I can’t. Instead, I hear: “I am sorry,” “Let’s try one more cycle,” “Technology is really improving.” I want to surprise my parents with a new grandchild. I want to tell my family and friends our good news. I want my life to change overnight. I want to read What to Expect When You’re Expecting. But I can’t. Instead, I have no news to tell. I realize my life hasn’t changed in years. I read When Empty Arms Leave a Heavy Burden. I want to monitor the progress. I want to see the ultrasounds. I want to hear the heartbeat. I want to watch our baby grow. I want to feel the kicks. But I can’t. Instead, I take the injections. I give blood. I watch my eggs grow and pray they fertilize. My embryos are transferred, while my husband watches our conception from across the room. I wait. I pray. I wait for the one phone call that can make our life better.  Or worse. I want to decorate the nursery. I want to childproof our home. I want to shop for adorable, soft, tiny outfits. I want to shop at Gymboree. I want to save money for the baby’s future. But I can’t. Instead, I imagine a crib in the empty room down the hall. I avoid the baby stores in the mall. We spend our money on Doctor appointments, tests and high tech procedures. We spend our money on a dream. We are left with an empty bank account. We are left with empty arms.  I want to share the experience with my pregnant friends. I want to compare symptoms. I want to be the guest of honor at a baby shower. But I can’t. Instead, I watch my friends get pregnant quickly. I watch their bellies grow, attend their showers, see their pictures and try to be a good friend. I watch their lives change and our friendships change in front of my eyes. I want my belly to drop. I want my water to break. I want contractions. I want an epidural. I want my husband by my side and my family in the waiting room. I want the pushing. I want the pain. I want to hear the cry. But I can’t. Instead, I feel a different pain.  I hear my own cry. Yes, I even hear the cry of my husband which hurts more than I had ever imagined. I want to hold our baby in my arms, with tears of joy streaming down our faces. I want to experience the miracle of birth, thinking, “We did it!”, but knowing that God did it. But I can’t.  Instead, I hold my husband in my arms with tears of sorrow streaming down our faces and wonder what God’s plan is for us and why we have to go through this. I want to pray that one extra special blessing be added to my life. And I do. I pray my 1000th unanswered prayer to God and hope that this time He answers. I pray for the miracle of life that only God can give. I pray that someday soon, He will give it to us. I want to be a mom. — But I can’t. Instead, I am right where God wants me to be: thankful for our blessings, searching out His will, basking in His grace, trusting in His perfect plan, praying for a change in status: from a mom wannabe . . . to the mom I want to be.