Month: May 2015

May 15, 2015

I am back! I have been absent from the blog sphere for two years.

That long ha?   Life got in the way as they say.

My Nicky is now nine! It is unbelievable!

She used to just coo and clap her hands and she would already  elicit so much laughter and praises while she did those simple things. Nicky was everybody’s favorite. She still is, but there are  three of them now in the family. My husband’s and mine combined.

So many things have happened in two years. Volleyball came in the picture and everything else took a back seat. My Nicky all of a sudden turned sporty! Who would have thought one of us will end up getting hooked up in sports.   Sports was never part of the plan when she was a baby.  I had her whole life envisioned for her, and that did not include sports at all.

My goals for her when she started school were  (1) she would get into honors (2) be a Math whiz (3) influence her to be a reading geek! like me! and of course, turn out to be a good person who knows how to get along with anyone.

Turned out, God has other plans!  Right now, our entire schedule has turned upside down.  She has to work everything out in favor of her daily practice for the sport she already loves.   She is getting better everyday and very soon, she will already be part of the main team when her age and skills will already allow her to be.

If it were up to me, I would rather that she focuses on her lessons and get the highest point average she can get. I would like her to be one of the top students  of her batch, and get advance skills on anything related to school.

But then the past two years taught me that as a mother, I cannot ask my daughter to live my dreams for her.  I only have one life to live, and it is my life! Definitely not my daughter’s.  Slowly, as she is starting to get older, I have accepted the fact that I have to allow her to make decisions for herself.  Let her have her own dreams and allow her to strategize how to make those dreams a reality.

Our children are just ours  on borrowed time.  Soon when they grow up, they will be on their own, living a life without us!  Our role as parents  is to raise them, educate them, and teach them life skills. If they succeed in anything be it sports, academics or whatever God will bless them with, our role is to help them and support them and guide them as they thread on this big ocean called life!

As I was threading on this stage of motherhood, I have also started getting into new interests.  While I was the tutoring – grade obsessed Mom in the past, who used to google fun ways to do arts and crafts with kids at home — and wanting to be  the best crafting Mom on earth, I suddenly discovered the beauty of  self indulgence.

What a great way to become a better Mom. I wish I have known better.  I have discovered little things that can make me happy outside the confines of motherhood. I acquired new hobbies (outside crafting haha!) and got myself into fitness routines which morphed me from a caterpillar to a butterfly ha,ha, (what an analogy!).

Meeting new people who helped me think differently was a big factor of this growth.  It is nice to have friends who think differently than I do. I see new perspectives and a whole new world to live.

I do not mean to say that everything I used to believe was wrong. Of course not! In fact the more I  try new things, the more I also appreciate the things I used to do.  Variety is just what makes it different.  There are more choices now an a bigger world to live in.

So here I am back to writing.  Seeing the world in a whole new set of eyes.

Come waste your time again with me.   Happy reading!  Till my next post.

This is our gift for Nicole on her birthday.

Oh Darling Don’t You Ever Grow Up (Video)

May 18, 2015

We threw a party for Nicole for her 9th birthday five days before her actual birthday.  It was an advanced celebration because her best friend sweetly requested that we move the party right before she would leave for New York. Because the birthday girl supported the idea, I said yes to this request.  Who would want to celebrate a party without a  bff on the side?  Being an only child, Nicole has friends and only two cousins as close associates.  It made a difference that Nicole’s best friend was there at her celebration.   The party was  a simple get together of Nicole’s closest friends.  It was fun and happy. My husband said, he saw  how happy our daughter was to be with the  people she loves.

One Happy Girl

With her bff

With Ikina and Summer her BFFS

Nicky with her close friends

 Her birthday Cake

On her actual birthday, we still wanted her to ‘feel’ special that her Dad got her a teddy bear bunch and a long letter very early in the morning.  I on the other hand have scheduled several work meetings for the day so she was mostly on her own the whole day while we promised to celebrate her birthday the way she would like it at dinner.

Midway, I felt the urge to make her happier so I thought about surprising her with a grand gift. I asked her if I could fetch her so that we could  go somewhere to buy her a surprise.  I remember that she has been asking me for a polaroid camera for a while now.  I was meaning to get her that and surprise her.

When I texted her this, she said “No Need Mommy” and I said “but why? I thought you like a camera?  I want you to be happy, happier, happiest today because it is your birthday”.

I was blown away with her reply because she said “BUT I AM ALREADY HAPPY”.

I showed this message to a few friends and they all said the same thing, My Nicky is really a contented girl.   Sometimes, we parents, in our wish to give the best to our children, we shower them with all the gifts our money can afford.  We want to give them something in abundance because we ‘feel’ this will make them happy.   In theory I have known this. That is the reason why I have trained Nicole to live simply and be thankful to God for all that we have.  But there are days that I forget about this especially when I want to shower my daughter with so much love.

I thank the Lord for showing me that I have raised my daughter well.  What makes her happiest are not really the gifts that she receives but the time we spend with her and the time her loved ones spend with her.

So we asked her what her birthday wish was and she said, she just wanted to be able to play with her cousin, eat pizza and have ice cream.  She didn’t want to go out for dinner nor do anything fancy.

She just wanted to be with us and play.   What a blessing Nicole is to us. 🙂

with her cousin celebrating with Pizza and Ice Cream on her birthday

May 21, 2015

I am a practical person.  Function weighs more than aesthetics. My home is clean. I have this thing for tidiness and clean and shiny floors. It is an inner joke among us that I clean better than any house helper on earth. No one can beat me in terms of floor care. Our bathroom is spotless most of the time.

However, there is an absence of feminine beauty in my house.  I never realized that until I met this new friend of mine. She is a  Mom who has the talent to turn things beautiful no matter how simple. Meeting her has given me a different perspective of beauty especially in the home.

I realized, cleanliness can also come with beauty and art. It’s like good grooming and looking beautiful can also go together.

So I resolved to take another look at every corner of my home and plan out some beautifying.

I the near future I shall be doing home decorating activities and will share here the before and after pics.

Wish me luck!

May 23, 2015

Got this list from the internet. I would like share this as I find this to be true.

How do we know we are with our TRUE LOVE?

1. This person should make you happy.

The most obvious of feelings sought after in a relationship, yet it is one that is often overlooked.

We all go into a relationship looking for happiness — and when things are going well, we find it, however, more often than not, things end up going south.

Sometimes the person who once made us happier than anyone else causes us nothing but pain.

Or just more pain than ought to be caused by someone who supposedly loves you.

It’s hard to navigate your way out of such a situation. It’s not something anyone can help you with; you must make the decision of your own accord.

Just keep in mind our lives are short.

If our days are filled with more despair than happiness, then how can we say we’re living life right?

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2. This person should make you excited about life.

This person elevates your overall mood and makes you look forward to things that never excited you before. You begin to see the world as a more pleasant, fairer place.

If the person you are with can’t get you excited, then you’re with the wrong person.

You should be excited to see him or her, excited to spend time with him or her, excited to wake up in the morning and go through your day because you’re going through your day knowing you have him or her to come home to.

If the person you are with doesn’t make it at least a smidgen easier to get out of bed in the morning, then you haven’t found the one.

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3. This person should make you feel at peace with yourself.

It’s important to find the right person to share your life with because having the right person makes you the right person.

It’s not that this person changes you — even though he or she often does – this person makes you appreciate the person you are.

If you weren’t the person you are, then you probably would have never found each other — you have no choice but to be at peace with yourself and the life you’ve created for yourself.

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4. This person should make you feel secure.

The feeling of security is arguably the most crucial in a relationship. Our lives are filled with uncertainty; that’s the way it has always been.

In fact, evolution itself favored those who were the quickest to adapt to this uncertainty, to the inevitable and unknowable changes that occur every minute of every day.

Nothing in life is secure because in the end, we lose all of it. But we’re not talking about the tangible world. We’re talking about feelings.

The only partner who’s a keeper is one who makes you feel secure in the belief that he or she will never abandon you.

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5. This person should give you hope.

He or she gives you the hope that your life will be a pleasant one. This person gives you the hope that you won’t end up alone.

Your partner should give you the hope that you can create for yourself the life you always dreamed of.

But more than that, this person gives you hope in humanity. When you find someone you believe to be an incredible human being, you begin to have the hope that the world isn’t as dark and brutal a world as you’ve believed it to be. It gives the you hope that the world can be a world filled with love.

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6. This person should give you courage.

Your partner should give you the courage to take risks you otherwise wouldn’t have never taken.

This person gives you the courage to do things you never had the guts to do before. He or she makes you believe in you.

No matter how big your ego, no matter how intelligent you are, how courageous you already are, how ambitious and crafty you are, there will always come a time when you’re faced with making a choice or doing something you just don’t have it in you to do alone.

That’s why we find partners in life; they give us the strength we need to do that which we thought ourselves incapable of doing.

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7. This person should spark your curiosity.

The world is a fascinating place — catalysts for curiosity abound. Yet so many of us manage to get bored. We manage to lose interest.

We throw ourselves into these routines that have no ending in sight, just an ever-spinning mouse wheel of monotony.

It’s this seemingly stagnant lifestyle that bores us, that makes us lose one of consciousness’ most precious gifts: curiosity.

When you meet the one, you’ll know he or she is the one because this person will spark that curiosity in you. You will be so fascinated by him or her that you’ll feel as if you’ve been slung back in time.

In other words, this person makes you feel like a kid again.

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8. This person should make you feel comfortable in your own skin.

Not everyone loves his or herself — for some, it’s much more difficult than it is for others.

Regardless of whether or not you love the person you are, having someone who loves you gives you a little extra reassurance.

The right person will make you feel proud to be you even when it’s difficult to be proud.

Sometimes we doubt ourselves. Sometimes we make mistakes that take a significant toll.

Sometimes the world and all the inconsiderate pricks running around it make us feel like garbage.

When you find the one, everyone else stops mattering. As far as you’re concerned, it’s just the two of you.

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9. This person should make you feel lucky.

Luck is a funny thing… although we don’t feel like we need it, we love it when we feel lucky.

It makes us feel like there is some force outside of us, guiding us and making our lives just a little bit easier, destined even.

The one you choose to spend your life with is the one you consider to be your winning lottery ticket.

If you don’t feel like you are one of the luckiest individuals in the world for having the one you love stumble into your life, then you probably aren’t that lucky. And that is cause for worry.

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10. This person should make you feel worried.

Not on purpose — you have to be careful with this. The person who tells you he or she loves you should not be the same person who makes you worry pointlessly.

There are more than enough reasons to worry as is — you don’t need someone only adding more stress.

When we love someone, truly love someone, we worry about him or her. When this person’s phone dies, we worry.

When this person’s flight gets delayed, we worry. When this person put his or herself in any potential danger — no matter how unlikely — we worry.

Maybe not a lot… but the worst-case scenarios often come to mind.

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