2007 in review

Posted on January 7, 2008

2007 has come and gone. Before I move on to 2008, let me make a month-to-month recap of the previous year.

JANUARY - Gave birth!!! It was one helluva month for Ramil and me. There were a lot of adjustments for us and a roller coaster of emotions. We were ecstatic to finally have our little bundle of joy but we were also overwhelmed with everything else that comes with having a baby.

FEBRUARY - We had our first scare as parents. Sometime in February, we rushed Mateo to the ER due to high fever. It turned out that he had UTI and had to undergo a process called VCUG to check if any congenital disorder is causing it. Thank God they didn’t find anything. Nevertheless, we had to treat him with antibiotics for quite some time to make sure that the UTI won’t recur. Aside from this, Mateo started smiling a lot! He also started interacting with us with looks and small mouth movements.

MARCH - I stopped pumping! Despite my hard-headedness to purely breast feed Mateo, we’ve had a lot of breastfeeding difficulty. During this month, my breastpump’s white valve got broken and the extra valve got lost. It was a blessing in disguise because I finally felt successful in actually breastfeeding him. Mateo slowly learned control of his fingers and started learning how to grasp objects.

APRIL - Ramil’s 26th birthday. It has been the least celebratory compared to his birthdays in recent years. Blame it on our financial difficulties. We spent it in my parents’ house with spaghetti, lumpia, chicken, cake, and ice cream. Still, it was a happy one because of the new addition to our family. Mateo also started rolling over (tummy to back), making us wary of leaving him on the bed.

MAY - I committed myself to teaching part-time for the schoolyear. Ramil and I started hunting for another place nearer the school and we also started the hunt for Mateo’s yaya. After five months of taking care of my baby and the house on my own, help arrived by the end of May. Mateo also started doing the other kind of roll over (back to tummy) and he enjoyed it a lot. We also gave him his first taste of solid food!

JUNE - Mateo’s baptism! Ramil and I would have wanted to have him baptized earlier but we had difficulty saving up for it. Good thing the grandparents graciously helped us. Maybe they were afraid that Mateo will reach a year old before he gets baptized. Hehe! School started which means I started leaving Mateo with the yaya in the afternoons. It actually provided a good break for both me and him.

JULY - Mateo turned six months and there were a lot of things going on around him… He had his first studio stint at Pic-a-Boo, he started going up on all fours and making crawling movements, and we started him on a sippy cup. Ramil and I would lead a boring life if not for him, LOL. We also started preparing to move-in to a bigger house that is much closer to school.

AUGUST - The big move. Although I was slightly sad that Ramil and I will be leaving the first house we lived in as husband and wife, a few days in the new house made me so happy we moved there. It was Mateo’s seventh month and he has started pulling himself up to a standing position. This was also the month when I tried to wean him from the breasts. Unfortunately, he had other plans and I ended up trying to produce more milk to keep up with his demand.

SEPTEMBER - It was a pretty busy month for us, work-wise. Good thing Mateo gives us a lot of good things to look forward to at the end of a grueling work day. He has started walking around in his playpen and has started saying dada and nyanya.

OCTOBER - My birth month. Nothing much happened, I guess I’ve reached a point when I’d forget my own birthday. LOL. We just went out to have a nice dinner. One bad turn during this month was when Mateo’s yaya told us that her older brother wants her to stay with them.

NOVEMBER - We were yaya-less during some parts of the month. Not to mention that we also had two different yayas at some point. There was a week when it was just Mateo and me. To sum it up, it was a trying month, yaya-wise.

DECEMBER - Mateo started walking on his own (not just a few steps but walking around the house!) during the first few days of December! Weee! On a bad note, Mateo had amoebiasis Ramil and I were swamped with weddings and we also celebrated our 2nd year anniversary. We were able to stay overnight in Tagaytay, our first night without our baby.