Photographs and Memories

Mom and Dad had just come back from a short trip to HK to attend the inauguration ceremonies of our uncle who was recently elected chairman of his commerce group. They met up with my great-aunt (my maternal grandmother's only sibling) and Mom had a lot stories to share with me when she and Dad got back home. One of the things that she mentioned in passing was that our great-aunt was very interested in seeing Swe-cha and said that she wished she had a picture. Now, my mom is proud of her grandsons, but she isn't really the type to carry a picture around in her wallet / bag so she had none to show and give. While Mom was telling me the story, she also commented that it would be embarassing (did not seem right) to give great-aunt a picture of Swe-cha when she had just returned great-aunt's family pictures to her. Huh ? As it turns out, Grandma (Ama) had loads and loads of pictures of her sister's family. When she passed away, her children discussed returning the photos but my uncle asked to keep them as mementos. Earlier this year, this same uncle passed away and his wife then gathered all these pictures together and let the siblings decide what to do with them because after all, they were pictures of our side of the family. The siblings decided to return them to great-aunt because that was the original plan after all. This set me to wondering... is this the usual practice ? I'm so bothered by what they did because I would want to have a picture of great-aunt to keep, I did get to meet her and spend some time with her while grandma was still alive. Obviously, Mom and my other aunts and uncles don't have any sense of family history at all.

Sleepy

Taking care of Swe-cha leaves me tired and simply drained of energy on most days but I find that so long as my body is still able to stand up and move, I am still able to function on autopilot when it comes to the simple, everyday tasks that I perform.

This afternoon, I felt so sleepy but I wanted to finish setting up and reviewing that database that I downloaded (for PT work) so that I could start fresh and early tomorrow morning. It really didn't help that I didn't get much sleep last night because of this darn cough (I eventually fell asleep when hubby got me a glass of water and a tablet of Mucinex, thanks hun!). Also, Swe-cha stayed in DC (daycare) the whole day today and I didn't get to catch a few winks as I usually do when he takes a nap in the afternoon.

By evening, I pretty much felt like a zombie. I took a shower, shampooed my hair, reached over to the body wash and didn't realize my mistake until I had smeared and massaged it all over my hair and scalp. I washed it off and reached for the conditioner so I could condition my hair and then squirted a generous dollop of hair conditioner onto my body sponge.

My brain sort of realized what was happening but it wasn't quick enough to stop my hands from going through the motions. In any case, the shower did revive me a little and I found that I could still put up a post to share how my day went :)

I'm off to bed now and hope to wake up refreshed tomorrow.

Helping Mommy

Our building's basement storage area had minor flooding during the recent rains and as luck would have it, our only damage turned out to be a box full of my old office stuff (mostly junk).

We decided to throw them into the shredder and junked the entire box. That was cathartic for Mommy... and looks like it was fun for Swe-cha too.

Caffeine overload

It's free iced-coffee day at Dunkin Donuts today and I planned this morning to take advantage of this offer. In spite of the slush & wet snow, I braved going out and dropped by Buy Buy Baby, Home Depot, Babies R Us and the local grocery store to pick up some essentials.

I dropped by different DD branches in between stores and got 3 cups of iced coffee.

Now ? I have a headache. I have not drunk this much coffee in such a long time - the last time I did was around this time last year when DD had their free iced coffee day too. Okay, more than half of the cup is really ice but this is still 3x what I usually have.

Haha! I'm obviously a sucker for free stuff.

Anyway. Lesson learned, don't be greedy.

Spring Cleaning

Hubby did some spring cleaning this weekend, starting with the master bedroom. He dusted, wiped, and scrubbed everything clean, even climbed up a latter to clean out the ceiling fan and lights.

He also fixed that closet door that's been bothering us, after almost 3 years of "thinking about it", we can finally close the doors to both closets and keep the dust off of our clothes. This is one of the things I've been nagging him about, I'm OC about keeping the closet doors closed to keep the things inside clean but he keeps leaving them open because the door is difficult to close. I eventually gave up nagging and as it turns out, he decides to fix the door after all this time.

Afterwards, he vacuumed. Oooh, the carpets feel so good on one's bare feet after a good vacuuming.

He does this when I start coughing and I start blaming it on a dust allergy. Now, I only wish there was some way to make him clean w/o having to get sick :P In any case, he's already doing it now so I'm not complaining (I did give him a choice of caring for Swe-cha or cleaning, he chose the latter).

He also started putting the knick knacks on our bookshelf into a box so that we can move the bookshelf to another location as part of our "Swe-cha's play area expansion" project.

That's one of the good things I can say about the husband. Once he gets started cleaning, he really does get going. It's just that sometimes, I do have to put my foot down because he can get out of control and start working on other things. Say, he'd start off w/ vacuuming the carpets. When he gets to the computer area, he'll want to organize & clean that as well, so he'll take out all the wires and cables and disks and what-nots and spread it all out to clean. Then when he's done w/ that, he'll want to organize & sort his DVDs.... by the end of the day, he will have started a lot of other small projects and still not finish his original activity (vacuuming the carpet).

Anyway, I hope he finishes this as I'm tired from being up all night because of Swe-cha's teething and I cannot supervise *wink*. But then again, maybe he'll decide to do our floors one of these days and I won't have to scout for an affordable Floor company anymore.

Weekend Plans

The grand plan for the weekend is to set up Swe-cha's play area in the living room. This has been in the works (in my mind) for a long time but we didn't really have any concrete ideas for baby-proofing his play area until Tita A took a picture of her girls' play area and sent it to me.

I ordered a couple more play yard kits online (supposed to arrive today) and got another foam mat set for the bigger area. Barring any complications, his play area should be ready by the weekend.

---

argh, delivery got rescheduled to Monday. Sigh.

Well-oiled machine

Swe-cha has been throwing up while he's asleep on most nights these days. It usually happens when he tries to cough up phlegm and he does not have enough control because he is asleep, the phlegm comes out but so does a lot of other stuff.

The past few nights, he's been throwing up on his pillow and then would get it all over his face and hair because he'd still be sleeping and he usually with his face down and his butt up high in the air. So in the process of cleaning him up, getting him changed and changing the sheets (because even though we have these multi-use sheets spread out beneath him, he still manages to throw up near the edge so that there is a little seepage onto the bedsheets.

Tonight, we heard him coughing again. So we ran to the bed and got there just in time to see him cough out the phlegm and it was followed by some milk, I got to Swe-cha just in time to lift him up just as he threw up so while he did mess up his sleep sack, we managed to keep him clean (and asleep), yay!

I held him while hubby went to get the spare sleepsack, replace the pillows and the multi-use sheets. We then put him in the new sleepsack and back to bed, all in less than 5 minutes. We were like a well-oiled machine tonight. Sad lang to think that we got to this stage because Swe-cha has been doing this a lot lately because of his cough :(

Milk

I think my milk supply is starting to dwindle.

I used to get 15oz easy whenever I express milk, now we're lucky if we get 10 oz. I'm not complaining because this is still enough for Swe-cha, it just means that I don't get to freeze more than a bag or two (if we're lucky) each day. I'm also quite relieved - in a way - to realize that my milk supply can go down. I've been worrying a bit about this because I'm gearing up to start working again and I'm worried that I might get mastitis or clogged ducts again if I cannot pump regularly during the day or if I cannot pump long enough to empty out my breasts.

Swe-cha usually takes 3 bottles a day and drinks somewhere between 5 to 10 oz for each bottle. I'm super thankful that we still have breastmilk because I get to fill up his bottles with 10 oz and not feel hinayang when he doesn't finish it or doesn't touch it at all.

Unfortunate events

On our way to church yesterday, we saw our neighbors in the hallway and we were told that they were on their way to the basement to inspect the flood damages. What the ? Apparently, our building's basement (where our storage units are) was flooded this [he gestures around 3 inches] high. We went to hear mass anyway and decided to check out the basement when we got home later. We figured it wasn't going to be any better if we saw the damages an hour later rather than now.

So later, we went down to the basement and I am happy to report that we got off almost scot-free. The only water damage was to a christmas tree - which I'm okay to throw away anyway - and a box marked "office", this had all the junk from when we packed up our office in 2007. I did have some framed photographs of my nephews inside the box, wrapped in newspaper. The newspaper wrappings were soggy by the framed photos were dry.

Praise God!

I felt like this was a sign from God, sort of like Him telling me to hang in there and that things are gonna get better soon.

The truth is, between Swe-cha getting sick every week, hubby's wisdom tooth extraction/surgery last week, a possible root canal for hubby, and this leak downstairs that's being blamed on our window... having more of our precious stuff (wedding album, high school and college yearbooks) damaged is going to be unbearable. Considering that I have not seen any checks from payroll services in over a year ? "Property damages" is the last thing I want to hear about. I'm so thankful that we were spared this time.

Sick again

It's been a very stressful week for our household. Again.

Swe-cha picked up yet another bug from daycare and developed a high grade fever on Thursday night. We decided to keep him home again on Friday. So far, it's been 3 different bugs in 3 different weeks. Sigh.

Friends keep telling me that this is how kids build their immune systems. With the way we're going now, I hope that this means that this is going to be one strong kid in the future.

The worst of it is that hubby and I are getting sick too! A sick momma cannot cope with a sick kid. Hubby has been such a trooper and lets me get as much extra sleep as I can get and he tries to pick up the slack.

Window drama

Sigh.

Just when I thought that the window drama is over, here we go again.

That leaky window that we've been trying to get fixed was tested with a water test (water sprayed from a host directly into the window - seams and all) last Friday and I thought we were done. It rained all day Sunday and leaks were still reported in the unit downstairs.

Come monday morning, the super and the unit owner was knocking on my door again, asking to knock more holes into my walls with the promise of patching it up again. They cut up more holes, revealing dry wall interiors. I thought that I was home free but as it turns out, this gave them even more fuel to put the blame on my window! Now, I'm getting a lot of pressure to replace the window.

"What happens if the leak isn't caused by my window ? I replace it and you still have leaks ?" I asked.

"Then you sue the condo," the super told me.

Sh*t. Sue ? I don't have the time or the energy for a lawsuit.

"If you want me to replace my window, make it official. Go to the condo board and have them send me an official request to replace my window because it is causing a leak. This way, I have something to go back to in case the leak persists after the replacement. If I will be compelled to replace my window, I want something that says that I will get reimbursed for the costs IF it turns out that the leak is not my window's fault."

So off they go to the management company to ask for that official letter. In the meantime, I have been very busy calling for estimates to replace that window and it is not looking good (especially not after having spent almost $250 on repairs).

Sigh again.

So now, I have money issues. Again.

Separation issues (from Swe-cha) aside, I can't wait to start working again. I miss the financial freedom that two incomes give to our household. I can't wait till we have the funds to move. I can't wait to sell this place. Condo living is so *not* for me now.

I wrote a really long letter detailing the window issues to the board of directors. I hope they come up with a fair solution that's amenable to both parties otherwise, someone might have to consult Northwest Indiana Bankruptcy Lawyers pretty soon.

Sulit

I really love it when a "toy" that I buy turns out to be useful. One such item in our household is the otoscope that I purchased a few weeks ago. The only sad part is that Swe-cha and now, hubby, had to get sick before we got to use it.

We used the otoscope to check out Swe-cha's ears for infection last weekend and tonight, I used it again to confirm that hubby's jaw pain isn't caused by ear infection.

In hubby's case, it is really a case of good news that comes with bad. The good news is that he does not have ear infection, the bad of it is that we suspect that his jaw pain is caused by his impacted wisdom teeth. He was really hoping to just get the ear infection which is easily treatable w/ an antibiotic regimen.