… keeps the boredom away. It can be pretty difficult to keep a two-year-old toddler entertained and preoccupied for the whole day. Many times, Ramil and I have found ourselves guilty of letting the TV take over babysitting and keeping Mateo busy. A few months ago however, we’ve imposed a one-movie-per-day rule. Although he’d still get insistent at times, the rule is slowly sinking in with Mateo. Unfortunately, it’s often the same movie for several days. I’ve had an overload of A Bug’s Life when he watched it everyday for almost two weeks. I’d sometimes tell Ramil to get an LCD TV for our bedroom so I can watch the shows I want instead of settling for Mateo’s DVDs.

We’ve just eliminated one of our house options – buying the house we are renting. The owners of the house we are renting visited us last weekend and told us that they are postponing selling the house. Although we are not so keen on buying the house anyway, it was still a sad piece of news because this house is the most convenient way for us to have our own. We are carefully weighing our options now because we want to start paying for our own house instead of shelling out for expensive monthly rent. However, things get more complicated from hereon. We’d love to get our hands on an elegant house in the Outer Banks but of course, that’s just wishful thinking. After swinging from one decision (postponing house acquisition plans until next year) to the next (just pushing through with it, what the heck!). We’ve finally agreed upon a semi-decision – to wait for the decision of the owner of the lot we’re interested in. If she decides to sell at a very affordable price then we’ll go ahead and pursue our Pag-ibig housing loan. If God wills it, we’ll be living in our very own house by next year. So we’re letting go and letting God

It has been a long time since I bought anything online. The last time wasn’t even for me but for a friend. Ever since Ramil and I decided for me to resign (last March), I held off any kind of ‘shopping’ online. However, many things are testing my limits including fashion jewelry sets from Holsted Jewelers. Since I don’t have the money to buy real diamonds, the items they are selling are good substitutes. They look nice and according to some satisfied customers, their products can pass off as real jewelry. No one could tell the difference unless the jewelry was tested by a jeweler. At least I’ll have something to give to my sister for the next occasion since she loves fashion jewelry too.

Because of the four-day weekend, my parents invited us to go swimming. We haven’t tried any of the nearby resorts here and they wanted to try them out. Good thing too that they offered to treat us because my sister and Ramil won’t be getting their pay until Monday. It’s going to be our last chance to go swimming before school starts. Hopefully, it pulls us through school until the next long weekend.

Mateo loves to cook or at least pretend to cook. He also loves watching me whenever I am preparing to cook. He loves to stand by and observe me peel and slice. The other day, I decided to cook fish tempura for dinner. I was just starting to prepare the things I would need when he rushed over and decided to ‘help out’. It can be pretty tedious to make fish tempura: I slice the fish into long pieces, sprinkle a small amount of salt, cover each piece in flour, dip each one in the egg and milk solution, cover it again with tempura breading, and then fry it over low fire. Mateo was so amused with what I was doing he couldn’t help but participate. So instead of another argument between the two of us, I took the time to show him how to cover the fish in flour. In fairness to my son, he did a great job! My usual preparation time was cut down but my clean up time increased a bit with the extra mess he made. He enjoyed putting the fish in the bowl that contains the flour and then using the spoon to cover the fish. I figured it was just like playing with sand, which he is an expert with. So we had a great dinner. He also loved eating the fish tempura. It seems that he recognizes the fact that he helped in preparing it.

Ramil and I plan to do some serious investing once we save up enough money for it. One thing we’ve decided on is to carefully learn everything there is to know about different investment vehicles. We plan to ask people we know who’ve tried different investments. We’ve been planning to talk to my mama’s stock broker friend so he can give us some lessons and tips on stocks. We also plan to read up on options. It’s important to get an  options software to help us if this is an investment vehicle we plan to pursue. These kinds of software would help us find, compare, and analyze different stocks and options online. It would help us manage our investments easier. I just pray that we earn more money from investments.

For the first time yesterday, Mateo was 100% diaper-free and accident-free the whole day. Woohoo!!! I am so proud of Mateo!

Upon waking up yesterday, I immediately removed his diaper which has been a habit the past few months. For several days now, he’s been very good at not having any accidents around the house. What makes yesterday special is our short trip to school. I decided to risk bringing him to school wearing just his briefs and shorts. Anticipating some small accident he might have, I brought a small rug inside a small plastic bag and extra briefs. I deliberately didn’t bring any diaper because I might be tempted to let him wear it instead. We were only in school for two to three hours and he peed once inside the comfort room.

When we got home, he was about to take his afternoon nap. Ecstatic over his success in school, I decided to let him sleep without diapers as well. Before putting him to sleep though, I brought him to the comfort room and told him to urinate. Taking some precautions, I placed a thick towel on top of our bedsheet before letting him lie down. He woke up dry beside me. A few minutes after waking up, he looked at me and said ‘ouch-ouch penis’. I immediately knew what he’s referring to. I hurriedly brought him to the comfort room and let him urinate.

It was the first time he wore the exact same briefs and shorts the whole day because he was so clean and dry! I’ll be working on learning him sleep at nighttime without diapers next.

That’s how I’ve been feeling the past few days. I feel like I need to have superpowers this schoolyear. Although I resigned from my teaching job last March, I was again called on to render services on a part-time basis. They needed a math teacher and it was something I couldn’t say no to. I will be handling two levels, Geometry for Year 2 students and Trigonometry for Year 3 students. It’s my first time to handle Trig and I know it’s nerdy to say this… but I’m pretty excited. I’m excited with Geom too because I only handled it for two trimesters last year as a replacement teacher and I must admit that I wasn’t that prepared to take it on.

So starting Monday, here are the things on my neverending to-do list: do the laundry, clean the house, cook, iron the clothes, grocery shopping, menu planning, play with Mateo, feed Mateo, give Mateo a bath, read books to Mateo, clean the bathroomS (unfortunately, we have 2), water the plants, write 20 350-word articles per week, proofread around 20 articles per week, make activity sheets, make quiz sheets, read up on my lessons, plan activities for my class, feed Aria (our golden retriever), give Aria a bath, clean up Aria’s poop and urine, and many more small things that comes with maintaining a house. The ones I’ve listed above are just some of the must-do things because there are also some things that I could delay/postpone or ignore.

I can’t believe I wrote a whole paragraph on things that I need to do on a regular basis. Imagine if I wrote it in list format, hehe! So anyway, I’m blaming myself for refusing to get another maid/yaya, for accepting the part-time teaching job, and for accepting the writing job. I see them all as necessary evils, ha! Let’s see how long I get to keep all this up. So yes, superhero mode SHOULD be on. God knows I’m going to need superpowers.

I’m sure every girl will agree that one of the things which is a must for us is good skin. Actually, even guys should have good skin. I know a lot of people who have tried many kinds of skin care products in the market just to achieve the skin that they want. This becomes a particularly bad problem for teenagers whose hormones would make them more prone to acne. Also, while some women ‘glow’ during pregnancy, others are unfortunate enough to gain a new range of skin problems. I was one of the lucky ones gifted with good skin during my pregnancy with Mateo and I am hoping I am as lucky again the next time I get pregnant (which is hopefully soon).

I feel happy that we are residents of Antipolo (Rizal) and that our workplace is also located here. Friday, June 12 is a national holiday so it’s a 3-day long weekend for the whole Philippines. Fortunately, Thursday (June 11) was also declared a holiday by Rizal because of Rizal day. Double yey for us! Unfortunately, it doesn’t mean that we will be relaxing this weekend because school starts on June 15 so we have a lot of things to do like prepare for our classes next week and decorate Ramil’s classroom. Yep, I will be teaching again on a part-time basis (more on that later). Thankfully, my parents will be treating us to a short swimming escapade nearby tomorrow so it will be one last hurrah before summer break officially ends for us. So Ramil and I will be workaholics today and Saturday so that we can still have Sunday to relax as well.