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?

filipino-style spaghetti sauce

We are lucky little pebble to have somebody looking after us.  Every weekend, Norma comes to Mommy’s place to clean up and cook.  Norma has been with Mommy for around eight years now.

Norma today brought with her Vades, her daughter. Vades made you special Filipino-style spaghetti sauce. It was so good Mommy had to ask Vades to teach her how to make it so you will have a chance later on to whip this up for Mommy and Daddy ;)

Ingredients:
(Enough for about 1 kilo spaghetti)

250 grams spaghetti sauce

1 bottle (320 grams) ketchup (hot-sweet flavour)

8 pcs large hotdogs (chopped)

500 grams ground beef

250 ml all-purpose cream

Soy sauce (4 tablespoons)

Onions

Garlic

Chili powder

Pepper

Salt

Sugar

Canola oil

Procedure:

1.       Brown onions and garlic in canola oil.

2.       Add ground beef.

3.       When beef is cooked, add chopped hotdogs.

4.       Add spaghetti sauce, ketchup, and all-purpose cream. Bring to slow boil.

5.       Add soy sauce, chilli powder, pepper, salt, and sugar to taste.

the people's champ

Do you remember little pebble when Mommy took you to watch the Pacquiao vs. Bradley fight and Mommy became very upset after because Pacquiao lost his WBO welterweight title? Well almost two weeks after, a five-person panel formed by the WBO came up with a review saying that it was Pacquiao who won and not Bradley.  Bradley, however, gets to keep the title and the belt.

While a lot of people say this is Pacquiao’s vindication, Mommy thinks there was really no need to form such panel.  No one really believed Bradley won.  Moreover, Pacquiao has won 8 titles in different weight divisions. Nobody has achieved this in boxing history. He may eventually fail to defend these titles, after all he is 33 years old and it will become tougher for him to go against athletes in their 20s like Bradley, but unless somebody manages to win 8 or more than 8 titles, Pacquiao’s reign in the ring continues.

And here’s what the Nevada State Athletic Commission can never take away from Pacquiao and the Filipino people: Pacquiao’s shining example that no matter how poor a person is, by hard work, determination, and taking timely advantage of opportunities that comes one’s way, one can rise from poverty and make his mark in this world.  Dear little pebble, Pacquiao came from a family who had not enough to eat and yet he managed to become a world class athlete, educate himself, and get himself elected to Congress. His interests have branched out to community service, entertainment, and even religion. Although some people may think Pacquiao is spreading himself too thin, Mommy thinks that Pacquiao is just showing to himself and to everyone else, that poverty is not a hindrance to success.

There is another important thing that Pacquiao has shown the Filipino people: They are capable of being united.

Philippine history is marked by divisiveness.  We have Filipinos telling against Filipinos during the Spanish colonial period, Japanese occupation, and during the Fil-American War. Present-day politics is more about private and self-serving interests rather than public service. Yet, whenever Pacquaio has a bout in faraway Nevada, there’s a hush which permeates the streets and highways of the Philippine archipelago, Filipinos dispersed far and wide abroad gather in pubs, and in one voice, cheer for their hero.

This is why, little pebble, Manny Pacquiao is and always will be, the People’s Champ. We don’t need a five-person WBO panel to tell us that.

happy birthday daddy!

You are now 26 weeks little pebble! The book, “Pregnancy from Preconception to Birth” says that your eyes are beginning to open and your response to sound is more consistent.  You now measure about 14 inches from crown to heel and weigh a little more than 1.5 pounds.  You still continue to take small breaths and although you’re only breathing in water and not air, it’s still good practice when you are born.  Your testicles are beginning to descend to your scrotum and this trip will take about 2 to 3 days.

It is Daddy’s birthday today.  We planned to be in Adelaide to spend with him this special day but Mommy and Daddy ultimately decided, after weighing the pros and cons, that it may be stressful for you little pebble to travel 13 hours by plane from Manila to Adelaide and another 13 hours from Adelaide back to Manila after a few days.  We also don’t want you to come out much earlier than your scheduled date. So even if Daddy will be lonely and Mommy will be sad that they’re not together today, they have to make this small sacrifice for you to make sure that you are all right.

 It’s not too long now. Mommy and Daddy are expecting you by 15 September (Saturday), that’s only 2.5 months from now! And you’re their no. 1 priority which means that you are most important among all other important things for Mommy and Daddy.

So what you did this morning was to give Daddy his present and his cake to be opened/eaten when he comes to Manila in September (let’s see if he will share with you his cake when you come out in 15 September).

Speaking of sacrifice, Mommy has read this book “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother”.  The book was written by a law professor who has two girls.  The two girls excelled in their classes and became very good at playing the piano and the violin. The friends of the parents of the two girls always ask how they were able to raise such intelligent and talented children.  The parents, especially the mother, only smiled.

The secret? Lots of sacrifice and hard work.  The children had to go home quickly after school to do their homework and then several hours practicing piano and violin.  The children were not allowed to waste their time watching television or playing video games. Of course the sacrifice was not only on the part of the children. The parents sacrificed a lot too. They had to work hard to pay for the school fees and music lessons of the children and they spent lots and lots of time supervising their girls’ lessons.

Little pebble, Mommy and Daddy want the best for you. They want you to be able to go to good schools, excel in your classes, so you can later have a good job and a comfortable life. But Mommy and Daddy cannot do these by themselves. We’re a team. So when Mommy makes you do practice exercises in addition to your homework and not allow you to go to parties so you can prepare for you exams, please don’t think that she’s making life miserable for you.  Mommy and Daddy are doing these all for you.  Oh, for sure we will have misunderstandings, you not wanting to do some things or not understanding why you have to do certain things when your friends are allowed by their parents to freely roam.  But that is not us, little pebble. Mommy and Daddy will devote their time and resources so they can prepare you for a life when you are going to be all on your own.

So really, Daddy’s birthday today when we are not all together is a start of sacrifices Mommy and Daddy have to make for you, little pebble.  It is a sacrifice, however, which is joyous. They know that they are starting today on a journey to making you the best that you can possibly be, our dearest little pebble.