mommy day: buffet lunch at anise & massage at spa intercontinental

After meeting with Caila’s teachers, we passed by the apartment to drop off all the things we received and headed to InterContinental Hotel in Dubai Festival City. I had received an invitation from one of our company’s suppliers to their Ladies’ Day which was a buffet lunch at Anise Restaurant, a skincare session, and massage at Spa InterContinental Festival City, and fortunately, they said I could bring my daughter along.

mommy day: nursery reports

On the 28th of June, more than a week after Caila’s performance at their annual concert, my daughter and I headed to the school to get her report. I was expecting an ordinary paper or card that had comments about her and her development, so I was surprised when Teacher Arsenia gave me a folder with several pages containing, not only the degrees of things she was capable of doing (I'm proud to say that most of them were Outstanding), but also pictures of Caila during the class activities. Naturally, I was really happy and proud that both Teacher Arsenia and Teacher Marien were all praises for my little girl. She was the only Filipino in her class, and although she was shy, she was able to make friends and get along with her classmates because she could communicate with them in English very well. And they kept telling me that she was one of the smartest and a fast-learner, particularly in maths and numbers, the different seasons, and colors.

stuck in the lift

For the first time in my life, I got stuck in an elevator. Fortunately, I wasn’t alone. Last Saturday, Hubby, Caila, Ate Cel and I had just left the apartment and were heading out to shop for groceries. We stepped into the elevator, pressed the G button, and when we arrived at the ground floor, the doors remained closed. We tried pressing the button to open them, but nothing happened. We pressed the B button to see if it would open at another floor, but all it did was go to the basement and stay shut. We went to the ground floor again, then pressed the emergency button until we could hear the watchman’s voice. For almost a minute, Hubby shouted to him through the intercom, telling him to call the maintenance people or help us get out because the doors wouldn’t open.

pregnancy update

I am now on my 30th week of pregnancy, which means that I’m into my 7th month and have approximately 2 months left before Baby Tummy pops out. Beginning the 28th week, check-ups should be done every 2 weeks; and because scheduling appointments with my OB needs to be done 1 month in advance to be able to get a slot, I made sure to book all my appointments way in advance until my 35th week.

i have 2 holes, the left and the right

My residence visa is about to expire so I had to go with our PRO to Al Baraha Hospital this morning for my medical as part of the renewal requirements. After the usual payment and paper processing, the doctor who was doing the verifying put a stamp on my paper and told me to proceed to Room 5 where I just needed to have my blood drawn. At Room 5, the man at the Reception told me to go to the last room on the left where two ladies were drawing the blood from the female applicants, and fortunately I didn’t have to wait. Unfortunately though, when the lady stuck the needle in my left arm, something went wrong; she said either my vein was too small or the needle was too big (whaaaattttt?!?!?!?!) because she got just a few drops of blood. So she told me to give her my right arm (which I did), and fortunately, this time she easily located the vein and got the blood.

family weekend: back to the farm

The 17th of June was Father’s Day, and it also happened to be a national holiday here in the UAE. So prior to that day, our Unit Household decided to celebrate by having a long overdue fellowship. Since we had been telling them about what a nice place it was and they wanted to try something new, we all decided to go to The Farm.

where art thou, my childhood favorites?

My previous post of Tim Tam biscuits made me remember the goodies I loved during my younger years. Living in PNG, most of the stuff there were imported from Australia and New Zealand, so I was fortunate to taste lots of yummy stuff. Of course, when the time came for me to study high school in the Philippines, those things were no longer easily in my reach; which I guess was a good thing because I was practically addicted to them. Unlike Tim Tam’s, when I came to Dubai, I never saw a single pack of those at all in any of the shops here…and the reason was the manufacturers just don’t make them anymore…or if they do, they’re just not the same as the goodness I remember. Of course I’m glad that I can enjoy some of the ones I liked (like Flake, Twirl, Crunchie, and Bounty), but here are just a few of the goodies I loved and miss so much:

the white goodness of tim tam

I love white chocolate! That’s why when we go grocery-shopping and I happen to come across biscuits or sweets that are covered in white chocolate, I just have to get a pack and put it in our trolley. But, as usual, I rarely open them right away. It would be several days or even weeks before I take a bite into whatever I bought. Naturally I make sure to check the expiry date if I do this. That’s delayed gratification for you. So anyway, that’s what happened when I saw this pack of Tim Tam White in Carrefour last month:

the household with the pregnancy virus

Is there such a thing as pregnancy being contagious? Because if there is, our CFC household gets infected pretty easily. Back in 2008 when Hubby and I had just crossed over, Che was already pregnant, and Dab and I had just found out we were expecting; Nanay Alice followed immediately after, then Cherrie, and finally Jean. Tintin also got pregnant about the same time, but unfortunately had a miscarriage. So from November 2008 to May 2009, babies were popping out one after the other in our household. And all of us had to deliver via caesarian section, and every one of us had baby girls. Pretty cool coincidence huh?!

your children are one-half of you

A few days ago, I saw this being shared by many of our friends in FB and I knew I just had to post it here.  Don't worry, Hubby and I aren't going through a rough patch (we rarely fight), but I want this to serve as a reminder to us and to all the parents out there to think and stop themselves before saying anything negative about their partners that will hurt their children.

caila's first on-stage performance

Since I haven’t been blogging for the past few weeks, please bear with me if my posts aren’t exactly in order date-wise. I still have to recall the details and draft them out, so some of them may be pretty out-dated.

In the meantime, I would just like to share with you a video clip I took of my daughter's (and her schoolmates’) first on-stage performance during their nursery school’s annual concert last 19th of June. Honestly, I didn’t really expect much.

family weekend: marriage enrichment retreat 2

As much as possible, Hubby and I try to attend CFC teachings that we know can help strengthen our relationship and/or add to our knowledge in raising a family. So when it was announced that there would be an MER 2, we immediately confirmed that we would be attending as soon as we saw that our schedules were free. We had attended the first MER more than three years ago, and since we enjoyed ourselves then and learned a lot as well, we were looking forward to the second MER. The fee we paid covered the overnight stay in a room, buffet breakfast and buffet lunch at the hotel…which was actually very sulit.

i survived!

Caila’s nanny had to go to the Philippines for a couple of weeks, so Hubby and I decided that I take a local leave from work during this time to take care of our daughter. Her nursery school days had just ended a few days earlier and she was used to being preoccupied with activities with her classmates. That meant I had to come up with things for her to do because I wanted to lessen her time in front of the television. With only me and the little one alone at home for at least 12 hours everyday, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. But…I did it! I made it through 2 weeks of being a stay-at-home mother! Whew! I know it’s one of the things I want in the future (to not have to work anymore and just be a fulltime mother and housewife), but I realized that it’s not for me…yet.