… on Valentines Day?

Nah.

Flu bug it is.

Plans for dinner tonight with friends is canceled.  We’re not going. I’d rather stay home and rest. Besides, I’m not a fan of Valentines. I hate the heavy traffic. We can always celebrate anytime, any day.  No need for an occasion.

Bitter?

YES.

LOL!

Let me just kill time doing a friend some favor and look for moving services she can try.  And let me leave you with a photo of my two months and three weeks old little boy who now weights 15.9 lbs.

(taken just this morning)

I was reading up on Caribbean weddings the other day when the husband came home. You see, I’ve always been fascinated with one of a kind weddings as I had a traditional one. If I were bold enough, I would have wanted to try getting married in an unconventional way. But I wasn’t, unfortunately. Anyway, back to what I was saying, the husband came home and we had a very nice talk over dinner. Something we rarely get to do these days as the newborn is usually up and about dinner time. We talked about how good 2008 was for us and we just hope 2009 will be as good, if not better. We also talked of how it’ll be so nice for us to reward ourselves with some romantic vacations as every couple needs time to be alone every once in a while. I just hope we get to manage to leave the kids even if we are not used to it. I told him about the Jamaica all inclusive resort I found over the web and he seems to like it too as the place looks very relaxing. I really hope we find time to make this dream vacation happen. After all, we all need to site back and relax once in a while right? Wish us luck.

This is usually our bedtime routine – Sophia playing games in my laptop with the dad and Mateo spending time with mommy.

And here they are striking a pose – the three people I love the most.

I was telling the husband last night while watching Mama Mia on DVD that if ever we do decide to get married again, I would love to have those what they call destination weddings, a far cry from the very traditional wedding we had four years ago. I bet such weddings as offered by Superclubs Resort will be so much fun as you get a fantastic view which makes the most memorable day in a woman’s life more unforgettable and romantic.

To top such wonderful wedding ceremony, a well planned honeymoon from a honeymoon all inclusive resort is something every couple will look forward to. Couples can opt to visit resorts such as Grand Lido Resorts & Spas, Negril Beach Villas, Breezes Resorts, Hedonism Resorts, and Starfish Trelawny Resort which are all top quality resorts. I bet even the not so beach lover like me would appreciate these resorts. But since we are nowhere near getting married again soon, I guess what is realistic to look at now are the discount vacation packages from such resorts for our growing family.  I wish we could soon plan a getaway in these wonderful resorts.

The husband is back from Macau. We picked him up from the airport last night. While he was away though, I had the scare of my life.

Read on.

Sophia was feverish when the husband left last Friday. I thought it was nothing serious as she was still active on our way to Pampanga after dropping the husband at the airport. Late afternoon though, the little girl’s temperature was 39.5 and she wasn’t her old self already whose very active and talkative. Although I give her tempra every 4 hours, her fever won’t go down so I called her pedia and told her that I am taking Sophia to the clinic the next day.

By 12 midnight, Sophia woke up and started crying. She was so hot!!! Her temperature was 40! She kept telling me her head is “ouchie” and she can’t breath. We gave her sponge bath and I was already in panic. This is the first time my daughter ever complained of something painful. You see, if you know my daugther, made of steel yun! She hardly complains of getting hurt etc so to hear her say that “ouchie” her head while crying, it is something. Knowing that the husband was not with us made me all the more emotional. I felt so alone even if we were in my mom’s house. I guess I’m really not used to not having Jon around. Its actually the first time he left the country without us with him which I doubt would happen again after this incident. We were ready to take Sophia to the hospital when suddenly her fever went down and she said that she feels a bit fine already and just take her in the hospital when its already morning. Wow, the beauty of a pre-schooler. She can really communicate well na unlike if baby pa, we have to guess what’s painful or not and bear with the non-stop crying without knowing whats wrong.

The next day, she was still not active while in the car and she even vomited as her fever went up to 39 again but I was a bit relaxed already as we were on the way to her pedia. When we arrived at the clinic, the pedia checked her and gave her medicines. She wasn’t advised to have a blood test yet though as it was just the second day of her fever. If her fever continues the next day, she will have to undergo blood test already. I was a bit relived though on the way home as she was suddenly active and was looking for sinigang! Hay, as soon as we got home, there she gobbled up on her pork sinigang and went to sleep. Hay, thank God.

Now, the husband while this was all happening was calling me on the cellphone non-stop. He was in panic like me. He can’t believe that his first ever attempt to have a short vacation with his friends abroad without us will turn to be a not so relaxed one. He wasn’t able to shop according to him and only got to buy an air conditioning compressor for a friend. So I doubt if it will ever happen again.

But guess what he got me.

How can I forget to include this event from the list I made here. This was one of our week’s highlight last week.

At Sophia’s school, each child is given a tutor – the one who will monitor her emotional, spiritual and social skills. Not much of academics really but more of all the other aspects except academics. The tutor will be the one to update us on everything though including her grades, her performance in school and how she interacts with others aside from discussing with us what she needs to improve on and talk about solutions. The tutor can be anyone in the faculty, can be the kid’s teacher or not. In Sophia’s case, its the School Director! HAHA.

Jon and I met with her tutor last Friday not knowing what to really expect as its our first time. The tutorial chat as they call it was very informative. We were told that they don’t have problems with Sophia except for the sharing part. She is said to have a hard time sharing the playground equipment during play time. But on every other aspect, she is very well fine. She is even the Virtue of the Month awardee, remember? They even handed me a picture of her being awarded by the school’s two super heroes – Super Monty and Super Rosie which reminds me now that I need to get new picture frames. One thing worth noting too is how they talk about how good at communicating our little girl was. She speaks her mind all the time and very clearly at that as they told us. The tutor read a very long list of how Sophia is but I won’t go into details anymore. Syempre, positive lahat.

Now, the best part is, we were also told that she had a perfect score on all her exams (Math and Reading) or what they call the long paper game. Whoa! Remember the time I was so worried as the exam was right after we got back from our HK trip? She was absent for a whole week! I was so guilty that I didn’t even bother to ask the teacher for their schedule before planning and booking a trip. But I guess, the cramming paid off, HAHA. We were given the test papers and am I one proud mommy!!! Perfect scores indeed! Her report card of course was such a sight.

Now, would you believe that we, Jon and I, as parents have our own report card too? Outrageous? Believe it, we do. It consists of our attendance to school programs, meetings, talks and what-nots. We even have our goals each quarter for the little girl to be updated in every tutorial chat we will be having. I find such funny but for some reason, I like the idea and so does the husband. So I now get it why other parents don’t like PAREF schools while other LOVE it. Different strokes for different folks, right? To some, PAREF schools borders on being “pakialamero” already as they try to go beyond the school premises and even wants to invade the home as they talk to parents what happens at home like our daily rituals, practices etc. On our part, with all honesty, we don’t mind.

It always saddens me whenever a friend of mine is in trouble, marital trouble that is. In cases like such, no matter how I would want to help as a friend, sometimes its better to keep our distance as its a very sensitive matter. Its so hard to know when to step in and step back, don’t you agree? As my husband would tell me, the best thing I could do is to listen and just be there for my friend if she ever needs me. But to meddle with things, that I shouldn’t do according to him as I could get myself into a bigger mess. I can’t agree more.

But as a friend too, I couldn’t just watch someone I care for get hurt and live a life in misery. I would do everything and anything to help. It is inevitable that couples, at one point in their lives or relationship, go through trying times that will test them but at the end, all they need is a good Marriage Counselor to save and restore their marriage. I was hoping my friend and her husband recognized this but I was surprised to find out that they have been through it and it didn’t produce good results. So since both are not open to traditional Marriage Family Counseling as they had tried it several times already, I suggested they try Marriage Fitness by Mort Fertel’s How to Save your Marriage system this time as the last resort before they finally call it quits. I fervently hope it works for them. As a friend, this is all I can do.