Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Nel's Fall


Little by litte Nel is learning to go to the toilet to pee or to poo. I'm glad that she's getting the trick. She usually can manage herself when she's in the toilet--come to think of it that we don't have any adapter for the seat!


However, yesterday was a different thing.


"Tatay, I'm going to pee," Nel told me. I said OK just be careful. She usually hold on to the door for support and do her thing.


She went out and I thought of inspecting the toilet whether she peed or pooed--she refers to them as "eh eh" instead of "meme" for pee or "eh eh" for poo.


She then blurted, "Tatay, ako hulog." I asked her where she fell and inspected her shirt, she was wet from waist to her breast--she fell on the toilet. The amazing thing is she was able to go out and did not cry for help. Buti na lang bago linis ang toilet!


Wednesday, February 7, 2007

School routine

A few days ago, I realized that the school term is about to end. Just a month to go and Nique will finish Grade One here in Thailand (Congrats Ate Nique in advance).

I can’t imagine how I can manage weekdays. I mean, I did not have any hard time of waking my schoolgirl up.

My time with Nique starts from 8 in the morning. So, 8am the siren of the house starts! Nique loves to go to school but sometimes she moves slow so I kept on telling her di ka na papasok (You're not going to school) That would definitely put her up and move as fast as Flash, from preparing for school to eating.

Then after one moment of rush, here she goes again, as slow as a turtle. Then I would repeat again and again the magic lines until she finishes dressing up and ready for school.

It's a good thing that we have the school principal for a neighbor. Nique usually tags along with him, along with his daughter who's a classmate of Nique, to go to school. It was convenient for me as I'm having a hard time bringing Nique to school--imagine preparing three lovely girls to school (while my the other two have yet to go to school--there's only me to look after my jewels).

I'm proud with the set-up anyway as Nique is learning to be independent at an early age.

Come 11pm, I'm starting to rush to school together with Nira and Nel and bring lunch for Nique.

I usually teach my second daughter, Nira, to read and write or teach my youngest, Nel, to sing (well, trying to teach her how to, but I think she knows how to better than me!) while waiting for Nique to be dismissed.

It's not an easy task but I get to enjoy it when I see my daughters develop everyday. Seeing them develop their wings to fly and strengthen their roots make me confident that they are ready for the real world--with God leading them.

Monday, February 5, 2007

Blessing

He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.--Psalm 91:15

In 2003, Dei applied for her and my two kids' passport in preparation for their visa application for Australia. I was already in Newcastle studying. It was quite hard for her as she was pregnant with Nel during that time. So, her father assisted her.

What happened during that application, I believe, was a test of faith. The day was very humid and the queue was long. She had to go somewhere, my father-in-law was keeping the line for her. Then after riding tricycle to the application center, she realized that she lost her passport application forms along with other important documents and a large amount of money.

She was crying as she immediately made a long distance call to me. She was frantic and said that she left everything in the tricycle, I calmed her and said that she should report it to the police. Imagine a pregnant woman, walking under the heat of the sun going to the police station, crying with two children in tow--I could only imagine and wish that it was just a dream. I was in the library, researching online. I stopped everything and just made a simple prayer.

Lord, help my wife

Believe it or not, but just under five minutes after I said the prayer--the tricycle driver came back and returned the documents to my wife--everything was intact, the document and the money! My wife was overfilled with joy and gratefulness. Well, the rest was history as they say.

2007. Today we submitted our visa application. I believe God showed that He's still in control. Everything was smooth from our travel to the Australian Visa Application Centre to the actual submission. After malling a bit (well, some details in between are here) we headed home.

For some reason or another, we were caught in this traffic gridlock for about an hour and we barely 700 meters from our point of origin. Out of the blue, I looked for the envelope where we have the visa application receipt (without it, we'll not be able get our pre-visa assessment), all our passports and other important documents! "how dare me to forget that!" I told my self.

We frantically looked for it in the taxi and when we realized that we left it somewhere in the mall we weaved through cars and buses in the street to cross to the other side and run back to Central Chidlom. In Central Chidlom, I instructed Dei to ask the information and I raced to the toilet and the toy department to see if I left the envelope in either of the two places.

God's grace was really working, I saw the envelope untouched, not in the toilet but in plain view of the public--on the chair in the play place where my kids hang out. We were really grateful that God, again!, protected not only us but our stakes.

My wife was ultimately worried as she's already burdened whether we would be approved to go together--well, it's just the financial issue for a family going Down Under. But this incident made us realize--God is in control! No worries!

Friday, February 2, 2007

6 years

Yes, we just celebrated our 6 years of marriage!

I was able to blog about this special day on my personal blogsite. Our wedding ceremony might count as one of the funniest if not dramatic!

It was Tuesday, January 30, 2001. The weather was perfect. "Good that we chose an early morning wedding!" I said to myself. Earlier, however, I was in front of the house of my bride worrying about the apparent tardiness of the beautician. I asked my aunt to take the place of the make-up artist. Apparently, the beautician came and the cameraman/videographer don't want to compromise their commitment that they proceeded with their usual procedure, which took a while!

The wedding march proceeded even in the absence of the bride. Yes, I marched to the altar alone. However, when the mass finished, Dei came running towards the altar. I pity her for not getting her time even some colleagues were crying out of pity of us due to what happened. Whatever--we were wed finally. And I thanked the priest, eventhough he was close to shouting invectives when he realized that the bride was late (well, he has some points but he's still a priest, albeit pathetic).

The videographer just remade the march, quickly though, as the next wedding was about to start. The remake lasted for five minutes and then we were off to the reception. My soon to be kumpare, Kenneth (who was a DJ at Mellow Touch then) and kumare, Elaine (my memory failed me! and forgot to include her when I first posted this), hosted the reception with Kitchie as our wedding singer.

Everything went smooth after that--and yes six years and three kids after. :D

Photo challenge


Our vacation in Singapore was full of challenges. One of the challenges was to know where to go. While we prepared by consulting the Visit Singapore Website and planned our itinerary via its travel planner, it's simply tasking when you're actually touring the city-state.

Taking a photo was also one of the many tasks that became challenging for us. As you can see in the above photo--the concept was Abbey Road! While it's not Abbey Road literally but the bridge was so nice for a photo opt. But the kids! I think they enjoyed so much being a tourist and was so tired to hold a pose for 10 seconds. Nira is not actually dancing the otso-otso dance and yes Dei gave in to the antics of our children!

It was like that during the tour--self portraits, sometimes I'll take the photos among other ways of creatively documenting our family holiday. It was hilarious everytime, we really enjoyed our holiday!