ragu sauce

Mommy’s weekends are mostly now devoted to preparations for your coming. Got something very special for you today from Greenhills but Daddy and Mommy will keep this a secret for now :)

Mommy has made you a treat today. She’s made you pasta with ragu sauce she’s read up from a book (the proportions here are Mommy’s call).

1 onion (chopped)
1 clove garlic (chopped)
250 grams minced beef
200 grams bacon
400 grams canned chopped tomatoes
500 grams tomato sauce
Oregano
Salt
Pepper

1.Heat onion and garlic in olive oil.
2.Add bacon.
3.Add minced beef. Cook for about 15 minutes.
4.Add tomato sauce. Simmer for 30 minutes.
5.Add chopped tomatoes. Cook for 10 minutes.
6.Add oregano, salt, and pepper to taste
(Good for 500 grams pasta)

Mommy and Mildred (your nanny) enjoyed the pasta while watching the night scene from our 11th floor veranda.

You really love your pasta. After Mommy had dinner, you started doing fantastic sommersaults inside her tummy.

sun's shining!

You are now 32 weeks Anton Lee Thomas!

Our “Pregnancy from Preconception to Birth”, says that you now weigh approximately 3 ¾ pounds and measure about 16.5 inches long from head to toe. Although your lungs won’t be fully developed until just before birth, you are busy inhaling amniotic fluid. This is to exercise your lungs and practice breathing after you are born.

We went to the doctor last Thursday and she said we’re both doing well. We just need to do a blood test two weeks from now to see if Mommy might need some blood transfusion when you come out.

Such terrible rains in Metro Manila from Monday to Wednesday of this week, little one. 427 millimetres of rain was recorded between the late afternoon of 6 August and mid-afternoon of 7 August. It was so bad Mommy couldn’t go to work on Tuesday. It was flooded everywhere! Did you hear Mommy talking to you not to try anything funny on that day? We would have had to swim to go to the hospital. The streets around our building were not passable and visibility was almost zero.

This video was taken from a street where Mommy passes in the morning to go to work:




Here’s another video showing flooding in another part of Metro Manila:



But today the sun is shining brightly dear little pebble. Just like life. There will be times Anton Lee Thomas when you will feel like there’s a lot of flooding all around you. Your troubles may feel so heavy and you might start feeling there’s no end to it all. But trust, little one, that very soon, the sun will come out shining and all your tears will be wiped away. You will say to yourself, “What did I worry for? What was that all about? I am much a better person now than before having gone through that experience.”

Through it all, you know what, little pebble? Mommy and Daddy will always be there for you, guiding you, and praying for you. Mommy and Daddy will not be always able to take away your pain, but they will be there so that you learn from the not-so-good times and acquire the wisdom that comes from the lessons that life hands to you every now and then.

olympics

Anton Lee Thomas, you’ve got 6 weeks and 4 days and then Mommy and Daddy will get to hold you!

You are now 31 weeks and according to “Pregnancy from Preconception to Birth”, your arms, legs, and body are continuing to fill out and at last are proportional in size to your head. You are looking more like a newborn now. You weigh in about 3 ¼ pounds and measure about 16 inches from crown to toe.

While our baby book says that you may not be moving out so much now because you’re running out of space, Mommy feels that this is most your active ever. Last night, Mommy and Daddy we’re laughing because you seemed to have gotten yourself in such a strange position. Mommy’s right side of her tummy was so much bigger than her left side!

Your Tita Cristine thinks you may have joined the Olympics in Mommy’s tummy. See how special you are little one. The Olympic games, which can be traced back to the 8th century BC, only comes every four years and amazingly, this year’s summer Olympics falls on your birth year. London (its 3rd time since the modern games started) plays host again this year.

4D real time

You are now 30 weeks little one. You’ve been active the whole weekend, are you doing cartwheels inside Mommy’s tummy?

According to “Pregnancy from Preconception to Birth”, you have continued to open and shut your eyes this week. While you may soon slow up growing in length (you measure 15 ¾ inches from crown to toe), you will continue to gain weight steadily until the time you are born. Right now there is about 2 pints of amniotic fluid surrounding you but that volume will decrease as you get steadily bigger.

You and Mommy had another ultrasound (your third one) last 16 July. Daddy and Mommy requested a 4D. We are so excited to see how you look like! Here’s a video clip in real time from last week:



The result of the ultrasound showed that you had a fetal heart rate of 126 times per minute and your estimated weight was 2 lbs. and 14 oz. Daddy said that you frown just like him!

We’ve already fixed the date little pebble. You’re coming to us on 17 September, Monday. That’s seven weeks and one day from today. Hang on there, and please don’t decide to come out earlier. Daddy is arriving on 13 September and we’d like that he will be the first person you lay your eyes on when you come out into this world.

breastfeeding

We’re on the homestretch little one, we’re on the last trimester now!

You are now 28 weeks or 7 months! The book, “Pregnancy from Preconception to Birth” says that you can blink your eyes and your eyes have eyelashes. You also turn in the direction of light if you notice bright light shining through the wall of the uterus. You weigh a little over 2.5 pounds and measure about 15 inches. Your fat layers are starting to form as you get ready for life outside the uterus. Your bones are nearly developed too but they’re still soft and pliable.

This is how you look now to Daddy and Mommy:

Mommy has been re-thinking a lot of things that you’re coming soon. One of this is what the best food for you is. When Mommy was little, all babies she saw were practically fed infant formula milk. But Mommy has been reading a lot and she’s finding out that breast milk is so much better for you. True, breastfeeding has a lot of challenges, but it looks that all the pros of you being a breastfed baby outweigh all the other cons.

Your Tita Cristine gave Mommy this book called, Bestfeeding: How To Breastfeed Your Baby”. It has a lot of techniques how we can overcome the initial difficulties. The trick here little one, is that you, Daddy, and Mommy need to work as a team to make this successful (actually, once you arrive little pebble, everything we do now will be teamwork).

Here are the advantages you’ll get from breastfeeding:
1. It will provide you perfect nutrition.
2. Provides milk as you need it.
3. Best possible protection against infection.
4. You are much less likely to have allergic diseases.
5. You will be protected against diseases in the longer term.
6. You are less likely to be obese.
7. You will have a higher IQ compared to a bottle-fed baby.
8. You are getting advantages which science may not even know yet.

So we’ll work on this buddy, ok?

giving you a head start!

Mommy got you yesterday your first music cds. She picked it up from the shelf among several other cds because of this claim:

Founded on research, the "Music for Babies 4-disc Package" is a compilation of music box-type nursery rhymes and popular tunes, famous classics and lullabies. The package also features Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s classic masterpieces that are widely recorded to have positive intellectual, physical, and emotional effects on babies and kids.

We listened the whole afternoon to these cds. Disc 1 has famous classics and the soothing music of Mozart (Playtime); Disc 2 has also the famous classics and the soothing music of Mozart (Sleepytime); Disc 3 has lullabies and children’s songs; and Disc 4 has popular melodies. Mommy will bring the cds to the office so you can listen to them while she’s working.

While we were listening to the CDs, Mommy was reading this book, “How to Have a Smarter Baby”. It has a lot of games you and Mommy can play while you’re still in her tummy and which you and Daddy can play once you come out.

Although Mommy and Daddy can never be actually prepared when you come out to complete our little family, we do what we can so you can be very comfortable and excited with this world you will wake up to.

brains vs. brawn

Ten weeks to go buddy and Mommy and Daddy will finally meet Anton Lee Thomas face-to-face! You are now 27 weeks. The book, “Pregnancy from Preconception to Birth” says that this week, more of your brain tissue will develop and that the characteristic grooves start to appear on the brain’s surface.  You now weigh nearly 2 pounds and measure 14.5 inches from head to toe.  Your eyes open and close and you sleep and wake at regular intervals.

You are gaining in strength now, little pebble.  Last Saturday, for the first time Mommy saw ripples in her tummy when you kicked! This makes her giggle a lot.  She now feels like a sumo wrestler whose tummy can jiggle here and there.

Now what are you going to do with that strength, dear one when you grow up?

You can choose to be like Gulliver, when he helped the Lilliputians protect themselves from being invaded (remind Mommy to get this book in the next book sale so she can read the story to you).

You can also choose to be like China today which has sent military vessels into Philippine territory last April 2012 and has refused to budge.

Both China and the Philippines claim ownership over Scarborough Shoal (a group of very small islands measuring 55 kilometers in circumference). Sarborough Shoal is a mere 220 kilometers from Palauig, Zamabales, Philippines while it is 840 kilometers from the nearest Chinese coast!

The Philippines has suggested that the two countries bring the dispute before the International Tribunal for the Law of Sea pursuant to Part XV of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas. China has flatly refused the proposal.

Mommy is very upset over this. China is a big, powerful country and can pretty much do what it wants.  It must be laughing its head off over the puny vessels that the Philippines has been sending to the Scarborough Shoal to protect its territory.  China is making the Philippines feel its economic might.  A couple of weeks ago, China rejected the Philippines’ banana exports saying that there were problems with the bananas.  China very well knows that it will be expensive for the Philippines to export these bananas elsewhere in the world. China is also aware that the Philippines will not be able to domestically stage a boycott of Chinese products.

The Philippines, being a poor and weak country compared to China, is trying its best to settle the matter diplomatically.  It cannot match China in brute strength.

Little one, at any point in time, you will either be the stronger or the weaker one compared to somebody else.  When you are in a position of strength, Mommy and Daddy hope that you will use your strength to be helpful and generous to the people around you. 

When you are in a position of weakness, Mommy and Daddy definitely do not expect you to meet the bully head on.  You will just end up with a bloodied nose.  What you need to do dear one, is to use your head, your mind, your intelligence.  You will need to come up with a strategy.  You’ve got to always remember that a scared and pathetic heart hides behind the face of a boastful bully.  After all, if the bully is truly powerful, why would he hit upon the weak and the defenceless ones? And if it truly believes that he is in the right, why would he refuse to submit before the proper authorities who can make an independent decision as to who has a rightful claim?