[zei the MOM] My 2nd princess is ONE!

 

Just like that, our 2nd baby girl is now one. I couldn't be more thankful for the beautiful year that has past. To our dearest Rio, thank you for being such a wonderful source of sunshine - your smile (that's almost always on) keeps everyone of us going. The sparkle in your eye when you laugh give me comfort knowing that your disposition is as bright as the future we hope for you and your sister. We didn't really know how life would be with 2 little girls in the family, but today more than ever, I know that I wouldn't have it any other way.

 

 

I want to say thank you for being the good baby you are, though I'm starting to think that you'll make a really malikot toddler, but I look forward to it because I know it will be so much fun. I want you to know on your 1st birthday that you are such a great blessing in our lives and me, your dad and your Ate Zia are very lucky to have you.

 

I pray that you grow to be a kind-hearted, God-fearing, healthy and happy little girl. For the rest of your lovely life, we will always be by your side. We love you Rio! Happy happy 1st birthday!

[zei the MOM] Now you are 4

As you turn 4, I want you to know all these things...

My dearest Zia,

Let me start this letter by saying I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU forever. Thank you for being a joy and blessing to our lives, for being the great kid you are even when I sometimes lose my patience and forget that you are still too young. You're growing to be such a wonderful young lady and I can't wait to create more memories with you, your dad and your little sister. Continue to be the happy and bright little lady that you are, playful and always curious about anything and everything. I want you to know that these are things you like at 4:

- Horses and Unicorns (still)
- Playing pretend and saying 'it's just pretend
- Watching Spongebob and Rabbids (which I actually don't like for you to watch)
- Riding the carousel and train (still)
- Playing in the big slide
- Riding in the car
- Watching Frozen in mommy's and daddy's room with the aircon on
- Saying stuff like awesome, gorgeous, amazing
- Playing with Rio in her playpen
- Coloring
- Giving mommy pretend letters
- Easter eggs (a.k.a. Kinder Surprise)

Thank you for the everyday joy you bring for just being the little sprite that you are. You have a beautiful spirit my love and I pray everyday for you to grow into a kind, loving and God-fearing girl. We will always be here for you. Happy happy birthday sweetheart, keep on sparkling. :)

Love,
Mommy

[zei on Career & Passion] Once-in-a-blue-moon blogger

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaannd I'm back!

 

So it's 2015, actually, it's already the 2nd half of 2015 and here I am attempting again to blog as much as I can. As I've read from my favorite blogs, blogging should really be a commitment - it's quite a hard one to keep at that. But it makes me happy, so go lang kapag kaya diba?

 

Anyway, it's August and I love this month for many reasons.

1) It's Zia's birthday month

2) It's my and my husband's couple anniversary - 12 years this year (Ang bilis!)

3) It's the month before the -ber months - which means next month, department stores around the metro will start bringing out their Christmas merchandise!

4) I like the look of the number 8 - just like an infinity symbol

 

Really hope that I'll be able to blog more often now and moving forward. Also, aside from my blogging, I am also determined to pursue my passion for event styling (on the side), so for lovely inspirations for your home or for your special event, please follow @lifestylewithlove on Instagram. :)

 

On a side note, the past months have been quite busy and I realized that despite the amount of time you spend working on deliverables, taking care of your kids, running a household and many more, you should really find time to do the things that you are passionate about and also spend more time with the people you love. Because it will keep you sane and ultimately happy. So yes, that's actually why I'm blogging again.

 

Hopefully I won't be a once-in-a-blue-moon blogger anymore. :) So please come back regularly for posts about being a mommy, a working mom, family life, shopping and everything happy in between. :)

[zei the MOM] Rio's birth story

Things don't always go as planned and Everything happens for a reason -- these are the two sayings that could sum up our second daughter's birth story.

Let me take you back a month ago. I was looking forward to experiencing the convenience of a scheduled CS, going to the hospital without pain (just a bit of anxiety) and knowing what time I will be operated on, etc. So as planned, we checked in the hospital the night before my scheduled CS. It was October 9. We arrived at our room around past 9 in the evening and I remember wondering why we had to be in the hospital already. It was my OBs protocol I supposed. After an hour of lingering, also based on SOP, I was whisked away to the Labor and Delivery Room for some monitoring they needed to report to my OB. So I left the husband in our room and told him I'd be back after an hour or so. Or so I thought. So they strapped me with the baby monitor and they monitored away. The resident in charge said that they had to continue monitoring the baby and they had to give me oxygen since the baby's movement wasn't as active as they hoped given her gestational age. And because they observed some decelerations in baby's heart rate, they made a call to my OB. After some hushed discussions, the resident gave the cellphone to me with my OB on the other line. "I need to open you up today, you baby's heart rate is not as active as we hoped," she said. All I could say was "Okay po", I actually wanted to cry because anxiety got the best of me and I was fervently praying that nothing is wrong with the baby. So after that, a group of residents and nurses preped me for the emergency C-section. It was October 9, a few hours shy of the scheduled CS I prepared myself for. Yup, things don't really go as planned. I gave birth at 11:44 PM via CS to our baby girl and fortunately for us, our doctors were great and they made a good call, as our baby came out cord coiled, which explained her inactivity when they were monitoring me. Had we waited for my scheduled CS, she could have been cord coiled  even more and could have run out oxygen. So yes, everything happens for a reason -- we were asked to go to the hospital earlier to make sure our baby will come out okay. We were really blessed and the Lord was with our doctors when they made the call to operate on me earlier. So to the doctors, nurses and other people instrumental to the birth of our baby girl, thank you. And to the Lord, You really are the master planner of our lives, thank you.  

 

Today, a month after, our baby girl is healthy and strong and big for her age and I can't help but be grateful for the turn of events and how the Lord was faithful to us and He made sure that, though unplanned, things turned out for the best.
 

[zei the MOM] Random ramblings

It's 3AM and I am nowhere near being sleepy again, so here I am yet again, recording my thoughts on motherhood mostly, because in exactly 5 days, I will be a mom of 2 girls and I don't really know what it will be like, but I'm pretty sure it will be different from what I know of motherhood now.

 

I'm glad I get to take a leave from work before I give birth so I could spend as much time with Zia as I can before her little sister arrives, but I'm also sad that I can't play too much with her because of my 37/38 week belly. Anyway, spending time with Zia got me thinking of how life will be with 2 kids. I read an article shared by a friend that the second child really gets less than what was given to the first child - and they say it as if it's a fact. But I refuse to accept it as early as now. So now that I still have the time to devote equal time to my daughters, I shall write about both of them (in the utero), so at least I also have a digital record of it since I haven't even really worked on Zia's baby book, so I don't think Rio's will be any different this time around.

 

My memories of Zia in the utero...

- I called her sweet pea because I knew from the start that she would be a girl

- I prayed for her every day at work when I had some quiet time

- I had morning sickness for the 1st trimester only

- She was an active baby but in a gentler way

- I read Dr. Seuss' 'Oh the places you will go' to her mostly at night

- Smooth sailing pregnancy

- I was fuller

- I craved a lot of cheese

- I had a smaller baby bump

- Born via emergency CS

 

My memories of Rio in the utero...

- I call her baby girl

- I prayed the same prayer as with Zia every day at work when I had some quiet time

- My morning sickness lasted until my 5th month

- She's a very active baby, with bigger more forceful moves

- I played Ode to joy to her using a music box

- I was a bit more sickly the 2nd time around

- Didn't gain that much weight but my belly is really really huge and I am carrying low

- I crave for cheese and chocolate

- To be born via scheduled CS

 

These are just to name a few, but you see the significant differences. So I'm feeling that my husband and I are really in for a different ride this time around. But we're all looking forward to meeting our 2nd darling daughter. If she happens to be similar to how her ate was when she was a baby then that would be great, if not, then that would be great too. :) At the end of the day, my only hope is for my two girls to grow up loving each other the way only sisters can.

 

It's exactly 3:40 AM and the husband and daughter are fast asleep beside me. In the coming weeks, I'd probably still be awake at this hour, but not because I'm writing, but because I'll probably be busy with the newest addition to our family. Oh, I can't wait. :)

 

Have a blessed Sunday!

[zei the MOM] On faith and trusting the universe

Today, more than ever, I realized how much faithfulness and trusting the universe is needed in parenthood.

 

You see, it's Zia's first ever field trip today and before this day came, my mind was a pool of paranoia. All the possible what ifs crossed my mind and convinced me even more to maybe just let her skip the field trip and just have her stay home. But then I thought, if I don't learn to somehow let go, and let loose a little, I might rob my little girl of valuable and fun learning experiences.

 

So with much apprehension but still in true girl scout mommy form, I prepared her stuff. 3 shirts for changing, 1 pair of leggings, 5 muslin cloths for her back, her mosquito repellent bracelet, her favorite toy car, a small rosary, and more. I made lots of 'bilins' to ate and the husband - please don't keep your eyes off her, check her back, don't forget to put her anti-mosquito bracelet, etc.

 

After the long process, I had to leave for work. So all that I had left to do was to say a little prayer to the heavens to keep my little girl (and her dad and nanny and the whole field trip group) safe and happy. Every hour I asked for updates whether she's happy, if she's eaten or if she has changed into a fresh shirt. Yup, as annoying as it may seem, it's a true story.

 

To cut the long story short, I'm now writing this with my sleeping daughter beside me. I bet she's really exhausted from all the fun activities she did today. Looking at the photos and her smiles while doing different things like feeding the guinea pigs, fishing, horse back riding, etc, was enough for me to validate that the decision to let her join the field trip was definitely the right one.

 

Now that she's safely home with me, I've reconciled with the idea that I just have to trust the universe and I just have to have faith that the Lord will keep my little girl in his warm and safe embrace whenever and wherever she is. And if ever she meets little mishaps here and there, I should accept that it's part of normal life and it will make her stronger and it will build her character. And lastly, I am now at peace with the idea that my role as her mom is not to keep her to myself, but to encourage her to learn and discover new things and experience all the nice things life has in store for her.

 

 

[zei the Charmed One] Has it really been 4 years?

I'm writing this 2 days early since I'm maximizing all my awake hours from this pregnancy-related insomnia. Most of my posts are about being a mom, but first and foremost, I am a wife. And on the 25th, I will be for 4 years to be exact. So this post is dedicated to my main man, my husband of 4 years. :)

 

First, I want to say THANK YOU, for the wonderful 4 years. I know it hasn't been free of the hiccups here and there, but including all those, it's really been wonderful. I love our life, you, me, zia and our coming baby girl rio; and I have you to thank for that. Thank you for the patience, for adoring zia, for taking care of our family and for simply being you.

 

Second, I want to say SORRY. I'm sorry for the times I've been more mommy to zia than wife to you, I think it comes with having young children talaga. I promise I'll make it up to you when our two girls are above 5. Haha. Kidding. Will try my best to be conscious of it and make sure you'll still feel very much prioritized. I'm sorry for the times we argue, but do know in my heart of hearts that even when we argue, I will forever trust, love and respect you.

 

Lastly, I want to say I LOVE YOU. Yup, no explanation needed. Just I LOVE YOU.

 

 

Happy 4th anniversary love! 4 years has gone by so fast, we've built a beautiful home and we're soon gonna be a family of four. We are beyond blessed! Looking forward to next 50 or so years with you and our girls. <3 p="">