For someone who is not a boxing fan, I think I have spent long hours on the web over the weekend scouring for articles about how great the fight went trying to educate myself as to what really is the big deal and what am I along with every single Filipino is celebrating. To my dismay, I found more articles around how Philippines has been celebrating Pacquiao’s win despite the disasters brought about by the recent storms. Which I found odd because around the time the flooding happened, there wasn’t a lot of articles talking about the disasters except mostly those mentioned in Philippine news and articles.
Okay, that may not be a 100% true, there were some articles that did highlight Pacquiao’s win. And Yahoo Sports in fact had him in the headline for a little while. It just feels a little down-played. With his fight with Dela Hoya, most search articles rendered features about Dela Hoya and very mentions on Pacquiao. ESPN also had an article briefly on the homepage but it was gone after the Patriots lost to the Colts. What an upset that was by the way. I also checked CNN whose sports section goes to Sports Illustrated (SI.com) and it is nowhere in the headlines. I finally found something in the MMA/Boxing section and the article is now talking about the fight with Mayweather. Give the guy a break.
I guess I was expecting something bigger this time. After all, it was an incredible fight. I think everyone will agree to that. Just found it weird that most boxing greats lists (though they are from 2007 and 2008) doesn’t even include Manny. What a shame. I guess it usually about the heavyweights or so I heard. But Pacquiao is now the only one to have 7 titles in 7 divisions, that’s gotta count for something. At the same time, he has brought back the excitement in boxing to the times of Ali and Frazier and the other boxing greats when boxing was exciting to watch.
About the singing, let me put it this way, I understand where Pacquiao is coming from. He wants to make his fellow countrymen happy. He wants the Filipino people to have something to be happy about despite the disasters, the economy etc. And he has every right to do whatever he wants, yeah he’s earned it. But at this point in his career, being one of the greatest boxers of all time — greatest athletes even — he needs to be careful around treading the lines of ridicule.  And I say that with utmost respect to his talent and personality.

With regards to his political aspirations, there is nothing wrong with his desire to help his ailing country. I think that it is noble and that he may just be incorruptible to a point which is pretty much what you want in a political candidate. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Vice President and President, really? I do fear that if he ran for office at this level, that he may actually win. You want to have people who have the knowledge and experience to lead the country. I’m just glad that the Constitution protects us from this technicality. The age requirement is 40 years old for both Vice President and President (Article VII Section 2), thank God for the people before us.  So whew!  If in 10 years he still has that desire at heart, and the nation wants him to lead the country then that’ll be a different story.
I read an article about how generous he is “to a fault” giving away $800,000 worth of tickets to family and friends. I just hope that he takes some financial advice from people who really care about him. Though his earnings are huge, it only matters as much as to how much you keep spending. Take Michael Jackson for example, how can he die with so much debt. To me it is unfathomable, but it has happened.
Don’t take this as a sports article deboning the fight, coz as I mentioned earlier, I  am no boxing fan, still isn’t. But I am a fan of Pacquiao. We’re proud of you Manny!!!

What I really want to do… These past few weeks, I’ve been crazily into Facebook games like Farm Town and Farm Ville. Yeah I know, I am pretty much late joining the bandwagon, but what the heck. What was supposed to be a time of relaxation has turned into some tedious labor of harvesting and seeding…yeah laugh if you want, that was what I felt hearing my friends talking about grapes being ready and they have to go and harvest now or else. At first, I wasn’t really interested…with a 2 year old kid and a husband who works nights, there really isn’t a lot of free time, but once I got hooked, I could no longer remember why I was spending all those wee hours past midnight trying to get a harvesting or plowing job in the marketplace. Anyway, that’s when I realized, gosh…I probably had time to do things I really want to do. So now I thought hard what it is I really want, here’s a short list (at least for now): 1.     Read more books — I was never a book worm, back in school I only read if it was a requirement, and I detested it like it was a chore. But now I really love it. Here’s a few I’d like to queue:

a.     Glenn Beck’s Common Sense
b.     P.J. O’Rourke’s Modern Manners: An Etiquette Book for Rude People I thoroughly enjoyed Judith Martin’s Miss Manners but thought some of it is a little bit traditional might be interesting to see if some has changed in modern times
c.     Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers
d.     “Alice Schroeder’s The Snowball: Warren Buffet and the Business of Life” I really disliked “Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad” and I’m quite hopeful about this one
e.     “Mike Dooley’s Infinite Possibilities: The Art of Living your Dreams” really loved Prof. Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture and I saw some good reviews about this one, hopefully it’s as uplifting
f.      Finish “Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight Saga” though very mushy, I’m quite curious how it turns out. My niece Kamille who is in 4^th grade has been asking me what “mushy” means, funny how she is well ahead of me in the reading the series.

2.     Read Carl more books — I want him to love reading…right now he is addicted to Thomas and Friends, he can name all the trains from watching his DVDs. I’d love him to love reading as well.

3.     Learn new recipes and perfect old ones — I  love cooking and baking, by the way, I said I “love” it, I didn’t say I am good at it hahaha…I grew up seeing my mom whip up the best meals out of nothing. I remember her making yummy churros on stormy days and all she used was flour, salt, water, sugar and oil. I wish I could say I am like her in terms of being a magician chef, but not really, it’s been a hit or miss especially in my baking. I’ve been slightly disappointed recently with my previous attempts in making brownies that turned out bad. My record is probably 4 successes out of 6 attempts when I did things exactly the same. Not sure what went wrong. Anyway, I still am hoping I can do better on my next attempts just laying low for now and let myself forget my disappointment J I love making fresh pasta and so far that has been pretty satisfying, but I can’t cook pasta often enough, we’re still rice people. Pasta has been my interest after being disappointed at the results of my bread making.  So far I’ve made lasagna and linguini and I love the textural difference from dried pasta.

4.     Take care of our plants — by taking care I mean, really caring for it and make it live — for some people this is a relaxing hobby. For me this is plainly stressful. I love having plants in the house — I really HATE plastic flowers. I think it is tacky and collects a lot of dust which is not good when everyone in the house has allergies. But the idea of it has been brought up by Bobby due to my lack of a green thumb. Yes, it’s that bad. Our plants only live because Bobby takes care of them. I’ve murdered different kinds of plants at home, maybe my next try can be a cactus

5.     Go to the Library more often

6.     Finish my cross-stitching projects, I know it’s no longer a cool hobby but I really find it relaxing, different folks, different interests I guess. I have a few projects I started several years back and I want to be able to finish some of them.

7.     Finish a scrapbook for Carl. The last finished scrapbook I have is from when I visited my brother in the US back in 1999. I haven’t even finished our wedding scrapbook. Oh maybe I’ll do that first. My problem is that I over think it. But the quality of the scrapbook is also enhanced by its spontaneity so I guess I’ll just do it with the first ideas that come to mind.

8.     Finish my list one item at a time.

9.     Add new items in my things I want to do.

10.  Enjoy life the best I could.

The last time Bobby and I went to the movies was 2 years ago, it was the week before I went into labor. We watched Ocean’s Thirteen.  We’re so excited to finally take Carl to his first big screen experience so we picked Disney Pixar’s Up. The movie was great. And to our great surprise he actually was very well behaved in the whole ~2 hours! He was so engrossed watching that we even have to remind him to blink cause then otherwise his eyes get all watery from staring at the screen.  

We went to the United Artist Theaters in Elk Grove and to my amazement, the food was so expensive! Has it always been this expensive? I could remember Bobby and I went pretty frequently. How could we have afforded it? How can anyone afford it?  We went Matinee which made the cost of the movie cheaper than going in the evening. The line on the food was fairly long and the cashier where we lined up was pretty slow so I couldn’t help but pay attention to what the people in front of us was ordering and can’t help but overhear what the dad and the kids behind me wanted to order.  

In front of me was a mom with 2 kids ordering a bucket of popcorn and a couple of kids meals which pretty much contained popcorn, a mini M&M pack and a small soda. Their bill was $30.25. Can you believe it, for popcorn and soda? The family behind me had 3 kids, each of which I heard wanted kids meals and a big pack of candy. I wouldn’t even try to know how much they paid. I got one medium popcorn which costs $6.75. I also got a medium soda which costs $6.50 and a bottle of water for $4.50. Call me crazy but I should have just walked away. Everybody knows popcorn doesn’t cost that much. But who goes to the movies without popcorn? Bobby hates popcorn, so it was pretty much me and Carl who chowed down on it. Yes, Carl loves popcorn. We just made it halfway through the container. I finished the stale popcorn 2 days later, convincing myself it still tastes good just so it doesn’t go to waste. Have I gotten cheap? I mean what the heck happened in 2 years?!? I still think I have some point here. I’d like to say I will boycott going to the movies because of this, but I don’t think I’m strong enough. But really, I think the theater companies are milking every penny from their customers and are really testing the limits of price elasticity. Don’t get me wrong, I think their marketing tactic is great, just evil. 

Maybe we’ll try Alvin and Ann’s suggestion of going to a movie drive in next time, they said you can bring your own food. It’s just been tough to try right now because by the time it gets dark, Carl is already sleepy. So maybe in a few months, it will get darker earlier again.

Carl has had great progress in the past couple of months in words he can speak. I find it really exciting because now he gets to express what he feels and he get frustrated less when we cannot understand what he is saying. His comprehension is great and he understands a lot of Filipino and English words he just does not say them - unless absolutely necessary.

We know and heard that we should not encourage him to do baby speak - we actually talk to him straight but for some reason, he seems to have decided to speak these words the way he can. Right now, I just prefer that he speak at all, than properly. I grew up thinking that if I had nothing important to say, I do not speak at all which now I regret because I really think being able to communicate is one of the most important skills needed in life. And the very first step to being able to speak well is to speak up. Anyway, enough sidetracking and back to my blog topic.

Here’s a list of the words Carl has been able to speak recently.

a mi/mi mil (pronunciation a mee): windmill, he calls the windmills in Tracy his friends and waves at them every time we pass by to Elk Grove

Avi: Alvin, as in his Ninong Alvin for some reason this is one of the first names he said, sorry Ninang Ann

ba: banana

babye: bye

basketball-chi: basketball

beeball: baseball

bibi: baby

bue: blue, as in Thomas is blue

chips: ice chips, he loves munching on this, not sure why

choochoo/choochooey: choo choo train

daddy/dada: dad

dape: grape pronunciation: dāp

duce: juice

eww: ew as in yucky wash poopoo

fishy: fish as in Goldfish Crackers — he loves those

gree: green, as in Percy is green

I did it: I did it, he says it after “succesfully” doing certain tasks like handing mom/dad the remote, getting water, surfing youtube for more Thomas and Friends episodes

I do it: I’ll do it, as in I’ll feed myself or let me type in your keyboard mom

I drive: I’ll drive, he loves to sit in the car’s driver seat and put coins in the A/C vents and pretends that he is driving

I sowi: I’m sorry

kuy: “kumot” means blanket in Tagalog. This is his fleece security blanket that no one can borrow. He is so attached to this blanket that we went and got a back up but for some reason he still knows which one is the original — even in the dark.

mama: mom

mooey/more: more

nanay: nanay, means mother in Filipino

no: no

one-two-fo-fie: counting from one to five :-)

opee: open

owie (pronunciation auie): ouch

peas: please

strobi: strawberry

su shu: shushu as in shushu dolls, this is from his ate muy’s vocabulary which means they want to be carried like the shushu doll in cradle position to sleep

tete/ati: ate as in ate muy and ate kat

tey: thomas the train

the soup: soup, he loves all kinds of soup even hot and sour. He started calling and enjoying soups after watching Pixar’s Ratatouille

tie: thank you

this!: yes, as in Do you want this? This! Do you want mangoes? This! :-(

tootchie: cookie

touie: ratatouille, time to watch the movie

wa wice: fried rice, he loves fried rice, especially the green peas and carrots which he hand picks when he sees them with the fried rice

wa/wawa/wati (pronunciation wä, wäwä, wä-tee): water

wash: wash hands or poopoo, eewww

Here is a link to Carl’s First Birthday Video courtesy of Ninong Kyo:

http://www.vimeo.com/1288850

I heard buong araw ito inedit ni Ninong, thanks!

Thanks to everyone who came and sent their well wishes for our little boy. Carl had tons of fun…hope you all had fun too.

It’s coming by really fast…we’ve been trying to get all the stuff needed for Carl’s first birthday, loot bags, cake, food, renting the jumper, calling the clown…wow I didn’t realize there is so much to do…but it’s all worth it. We’re really excited. I’m sure he is too. Things he’s doing now: when he sees kids playing outside, he’ll start yelling ‘ata! ata’ means ‘bata’ and would wave his hand like a beauty queen. Then he’d like to go out of the house. He knows how to say ‘ball’ or ‘b-b-ball’, guess who’s influence that is. He’d say that everytime he sees a ball or a basketball court. He gets really excited seeing his dad play and would try to hug the regular sized basketball which is bigger than him. He has 5 teeth now, 3 at the top, 2 at the bottom. Bites when he gets really excited and grinds his teeth. We’re trying to break him off of it. Kulit na, but really really fun and sweet.

Carl had his 9th month well-baby checkup last April 11, 2008.

Here’s a summary of his stats:

height = 30 1/2 inches (95th-97th percentile)
weight = 22 lbs (75th percentile)

Ok, he’s slowed down a little bit on his weight, there goes our football player haha…actually, he’s still eating well but he just started to get really active. He keeps squirming, wants to go down when you’re carrying him, loves to walk a lot, of course still supported.

He sleeps a lot, usually naps from 2 to 4 hours maybe that’s why he keeps growing tall. By 8:30pm he’s usually ready to go to bed. He sleeps overnight except to have his milk and wakes up at around 7am.

 He still loves his yogurt, likes to eat rice with some veggies and sauce or broth. We tried giving him french fries and he loved it too.

He just learned how to kiss. He doesn’t like playing with stuffed animals but once he gets a hold of it, he would just smooch on the toy. He also saw a picture of his Ate Muy and Ate Kat and kissed it too. He loves seeing kids. When there are kids in the park, he would shout at them like he’d like to start playing with them.

 He’s drooling so much again, maybe he’s getting his next set of teeth soon. He also likes to bite so much, maybe the gums are getting itchy from the tooth that’s coming out.

Ok, so no measurement updates this month haha! I guess when Carl grows up, he’ll get mad at me for broadcasting his growth, just imagine if I broadcasted my own weight haha! Ok let’s stay off that topic for now, well, primarily because Carl’s next doctor’s visit isn’t until next month. So let’s keep it a surprise for now :-)

Anyway, we’ve just uploaded his 8th month pictures at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30688885@N00/sets/72157604155798080/

He’s growing pretty big, he just started having some solids like rice, egg yolk, bananas and loves yogurt. Still loves his formula most of all.
His 2 front teeth popped out finally after months of drooling and biting everything in sight.

He’s been sitting pretty firmly now. He can sit for an hour playing (or should I say chewing) with the TV or Wii remote or the string of the window blinds or his Lala’s cellphone. Yeah, he’s not even remotely interested with his own toys, oh well, maybe someday.

He just started mumbling “ma ma ma ma ma”, I’m not sure it means “Mama” at all but hopefully soon. We can’t wait for him to talk, and now that he talks, well actually right now it’s mostly noise — loud noises it really is so funny coz it seems like he just started knowing that he is the one making the sounds and he just won’t stop. We’ve been bringing him in and out of the church when we attend the mass because he really gets excited when he sees lots of people and would start yelling. Sometimes other people can’t help but stare to see who is making all that noise so Bobby and I would take turns bringing him outside when there is no cry room available. Well, what are we gonna do? We can’t shush him yet, he’s too young to know what that means and he barely started talking.  When we take him out, he gets really excited to see lots of people. He waves and smiles at strangers — really friendly.

Ok, that’s it for now. Watch out for updates soon!

Sorry if this blog sounds pensive on a Friday…I’ve just watched Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture again(http://video.stumbleupon.com/?s=ithct48cqw&i=ufcchmyxqsuj9vwsemax) from Cris’ forwarded email. I was really touched about the values he’s pointed, very admirable. I actually loved it more this second time. Seems like the lecture he gave at Oprah’s show is a bit more condensed and really pointed out the best points of his lecture. The original video was forwarded to me by Kyo at YouTube (http://video.stumbleupon.com/?s=ithct48cqw&i=ufcchmyxqsuj9vwsemax) which if I remember correctly was at least an hour and 1/2 long. Though I found him funnier and more genuine the first time.

It was great how he’s pointed how important it is to know about loving people and liking things. I think I heard something similar long ago but I just couldn’t remember where I heard it. For days now, I’ve been thinking possibly what item comes close to how important my family is. Honestly, I couldn’t think of anything. I know Carl is still young right now. I have promised myself that we will not give him everything — or at least try not to — besides I don’t even know how is that possible. But really, well if we did, what else will he have to live for?

It really is important to let your children live their lives and their dreams.  It was funny how Prof. Pausch joked about how his mother introduces him as “Here’s my son, the doctor, but not the kind that helps people” when he got his PhD. Honestly, I hope Carl would like to be a doctor, particularly a surgeon someday, but it is just unfair to let him do the things I wanted in my life. Maybe it’s just me watching too much Grey’s Anatomy haha! But after listening to his lecture, it led me think what was my childhood dream? Yeah, I wanted to become a doctor, specifically, in Psychiatric Medicine. I don’t even know how long I’d last in that profession, my father used to tell my mother how scary it is when they were doing their on the job training in Mental Hospitals. But I really find how the mind works interesting. It’s not that I resent not having been able to pursue my dream — well, actually, a little bit, ok…a lot. So I am hoping can support Carl with whatever he wants to be. Because really, you can never roll time back.

I recently talked to a schoolmate of mine in grade school who just graduated with a degree in Medicine and just passed the board exams and I am just mesmerized for days…we went to the same class and he is now a doctor. Wow! I felt proud and envious at the same. He mentioned a very similar thought I had, that when we were young we dreamt big…we think we can conquer the world. With less frustrations and less failures, nobody can tell us what we can and cannot do. But as we grow older we tend to forget that. I guess Prof. Pausch’s whole point is that we should never forget what our dreams are.

I am amazed how someone’s life success really is defined in different ways by different people. I admire people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet not because they’ve been able to achieve great wealth but because they’ve learned before they can’t that there is more important things beyond getting rich. I know I am not as rich as them, but I never thought of myself as poor and I never felt envious of people who had more material wealth than me. In my daily prayers, I’ve prayed for a lot of things — but I’ve never asked to get rich. So far, all my prayers have been answered, gosh now that I think of it, why didn’t I?!?  Then I realized, it’s because it’s not important to me. The best point Prof. Pausch said was that “if you live your life right, your dreams will come to you. And if otherwise, experience is what you get when you do not get what you want.”

 I’ve been looking at Carl’s pictures from when he was born…I’ve always thought he was such a cute baby. Even when he had a bunch of pimples when he was about a month old. I know it was a personal bias being his mom, of course all parents think that. Anyway, I never realized that he will be cuter! I just love the pictures we recently uploaded on his 7th month at flickr. Believe it or not, I didn’t even have to pick which ones to upload. Bobby always asks me to pick just the nice ones to share, especially when there are similar ones. But it was just too hard so I uploaded everything.

I also tried uploading a video we took of him last month at my multiply.com account. Click on this link to view the video. He has been more and more responsive now, always smile when you point the camera at him. He’s been eating some solids, he loves mashes apples, bananas, peach but mostly the jarred foods. He usually stares at us when we are eating but when you try to give him some adult food he avoids it. I find it kinda weird. I just thought he would grab the food from my hand and put it straight into his mouth. Last night we tried to give him some Graduates cereals but looks like he’s not ready yet. He couldn’t figure out what to do when he has solid textures in his mouth. Oh well, maybe in a few weeks. Ok, till the next update! Come back soon.

If you do not have multiply.com account, you can download it here: Carl’s Video at 6 months .wmv

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• Thoughts Around the Pacquiao-Cotto Fight
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• Theater Dining - Just another term for extortion
• Carl’s Vocabulary at 2 years old
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