Livin high and takin it easy

Almost a month ago, I decided to finally get a one-year subscription to the Smart Parenting Magazine – because I wanted easy access to a magazine I thought might be of some help to me AND because Summit Media was having a promo of giving away a FREE copy of The Smart Mom’s Guide To The Toddler Years priced at P295 for every new subscription. Aside from the fact that I thought “free” was a good offer, it’s really very hard to get one’s hand on a copy of this book.

This afternoon, my free copy of the book arrived (sans the magazine. This month’s issue is not released yet?)
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National Book Store is currently having a great sale. When Lia and I dropped by last Friday, I saw books that were on sale that I wanted to buy – but we had to go do all kinds of other things and we didn’t get to come back. When I went back yesterday, I didn’t find that one book I had set my eyes on. Dang, it was priced at P75 too! That is how I missed out on what seemed to be such a promising mommy-book for me… Mommy Wars: Stay-at-Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families.

I did find wonderfully colorful books for Lia – the Patchwork concept books for very young children. There are 8 titles in the series but I only managed to find five. The hardcover books are originally priced at P359 but I got them for P101.50 each.

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I can’t believe Lia is now 16 months. Time really flies. Actually, I just want to rattle off things she can now do as a 16-month old. Today, after all is the 7th of this month.

I previously made 2 blog posts on her milestones, which is what I use to track her developments. So far, I made one for her 7th month (which was last November) and another for her 13th month (which was last May).

I am not going to post anymore the Baby Milestones Chart for 13-18 months because Lia can do all of the things listed there. More

I finally subscribed to a Smart Parenting magazine and now my friends can make fun of me. Hahaha. I have been trying to avoid subscribing since I remember that once, one of my friends joked, “Wow, you’re such a housewife! I bet you have a subscription to Good Housekeeping!” For the record, I do not have a subscription to Good Housekeeping nor have I had any subscription to any magazine for that matter until now. Now my friend can say, “Wow, you’re such a mommy! I bet you have a subscription to Smart Parenting!” and I would just turn red in the face and be able to say or do nothing except flash a big wide toothy smile. Guilty as charged.

What finally pushed me to subscribe?

One, I had really wanted this book!

The Smart Mom’s Guide to the Toddler Years

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WARNING: This post is for and for mommies only. If you’re not a mom, stay away from this post.

I don’t really talk much about my daughter in my blog. Or if I do, I try to keep it to a minimum; but this post is all about mommyhood and if you’re not a mom, you will not be able to relate. If you are going to be a mom, reading might give you some insights. As for all the others, you have been warned.

Today I am one very proud momma. Today, it seemed like I have toilet-trained Lia.

A month or so ago, I saw the following signs (This is a list I took from this site):

Your child can pull his or her pants down and then up again.

Lia has actually been able to put clothes on and off herself for a long time now. When she is sleeping for the night or her naps, I have to check on her every so often to see if she still has her clothes on. You have to understand that my daughter sleeps on her own and by herself. We just put her in her crib every time she needs to sleep and she falls asleep on her own. We never have to carry or rock her to sleep. It’s always been that way after I stopped breastfeeding her at eight months (not by choice but due to my own health), it took forever to put her to sleep when I rocked her to sleep and she was too heavy for me to carry so I just ended giving her a bottle and she fell asleep on her own. After that, she could not fall asleep as long as someone was inside the room. We always had to close the door as a signal that it was sleeping time and not playtime and that she had to go to sleep. So now, every time she is asleep, no one is allowed to go inside the room until she wakes up and calls out.

Lia is now able to put clothes on that she even sometimes puts my own blouses on her. (Did you see that photo of her wearing my blouse on my birthday? She put that on herself.)
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I saw this on Twitter, tweeted by Flow Magazine, which I follow… and well, it was funny.

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If there is anything to be happy about today, it is that… I taught Lia how to say “door” and “out”.

I had to go home early the other day because I had migraine. I slept very early, like seven in the evening. I woke up at maybe three in the morning because I was hungry and then I got online. A few hours later, Lia was up. I picked her up from her crib and I took her to lay in bed. We all laid in bed for a few minutes.

When Lia wakes up in the morning, the first thing she does is point More

It’s been some time since I last posted anything mommy-related and I figured today is a good day as any. Lia’s favorite things now include brooms, dust pans, laundry brushes and her favorite activities are sweeping the floor, brushing sheets and walls to name a few.

Here is a link to the video of sweeping Lia on Youtube.

Not to mention wearing her Mama’s clothes, trying to put on her Mama’s shoes

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Spring, 1996

Clare: So I was simply not thinking about a lot of important stuff because I was completely drunk with the notion of a baby: a baby that looked sort of like Henry, black hair and those intense eyes and maybe very pale like me and smelled like milk and talcum powder and skin, a sort of dumpling baby, gurgling and laughing at everyday stuff, a monkey baby, a small cooing sort of baby. I would dream about babies. In my dreams I would climb a tree and find a very small shoe in a nest; I would suddenly discover that the cat/book/sandwich I thought I was holding was really a baby; I would be swimming in the lake and More

[This is a repost of a blog entry made in April 2009.
Click here to view the original.]

Before I got pregnant, I was 84 lbs. That was not an all-time record low, because back in college I hit 80. A time when I dreaded walking around U.P.’s academic oval because I was literally being blown away at times, a time when I was suspected of having either leukemia or thalassemia and made frequent trips to various specialists and a career in medicine was permanently erased from my future.

When I was admitted to the hospital after my water bag broke, I was 112 lbs – an all-time record high. More