I am a mom

Wow! It's been more than 8 months since my last post. When I started this blog, I was hoping to make updates at least every week and obviously I failed. But then, this blog is not supposed to be something that I have to do but it is something that I like to do whenever I want to. I am the boss! LOL.

Being a full-time mom is a time-consuming job. Everything you do is a labor of love. There are lots of frustrations, sometimes you worry too much and oftentimes you get stressed out over little things. Many times I look at my kids while they are sleeping and utter a prayer for them. I don't know what the future holds for them. I only know that God has the best plan for them and that He is in control.

Last night, while we were out, my younger daughter said, "After eating my dessert we will go to our comfortable and lovely home." Ahhh, it is music to my ears. Our home is a haven, a refuge, a wonderful place to live in. Our family is full of love and joy. I am content. I am a mom.

Models and Make-up

"Mommy, why don't you put on make-up?" asked my little girl.

I don't wear make-up. I only put on some during special occasions like weddings and weddings and weddings (Hmm... the last wedding I attended was more than a year ago). Sometimes I put on a light lip stick or lip gloss when I go to church. Most of the time my face is free of cosmetics. My daughter's question really disturbed me. Do I look horrible now that I'm nearly 40?

"Why? Don't I look pretty without make-up?" I asked her.

"You're pretty but you need make-up to be prettier. When I'm big I want to put make-up too." 

I felt that in her own way my daughter is asking for my assurance that it is okay to put on make-up. If I am doing it then she can do the same. It made me realize how important it is to be a good role model for my children. They believe that everything they see me do is worth emulating. I should be very careful in what I do and say and not let Barbie teach my kids how they should act and live their lives.

(Don't grow up too fast my dears. Enjoy your childhood years. Once they are gone you can never have them back.) 

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Proverbs 31:30

Allergy Mystery

My daughter came home from school irritated with her itchy palms. I did not pay much attention to it. Truth is I got annoyed with her because she kept grumbling and getting mad with the itchiness.

It was a Friday and we went to the mall afterwards and ate at Yellow Cab. She was still complaining about her itchy palms and her Dad told her to just wash her hands properly. After eating we went to the toilet and it was there that I was able to see the tiny rashes on her hands, arms and even her body.

We immediately went to a pharmacy and I bought a loratadine tablet for her which is what I usually give her when she has allergic rhinitis. We then decided to just go home instead of buying groceries.

At home I took a good look at her rashes. They were all over her body. They were tiny, raised and looked a lot like heat rash. They looked similar to the rashes she got when she took amoxicillin. When I touched her skin it was very rough. We can't figure out where it came from since she did not take any medications prior to the rashes and I suspected the food she ate but I don't know which one.

The next day she had a low grade fever and her rashes were redder and warm to touch. A doctor friend suggested giving her Iterax and paracetamol and to observe her condition. It eased the itchiness a little but the rashes continued to abound and her fever went on and off.

She underwent lab tests and thankfully they did not find anything serious. She is still not well but I noticed today that her rashes are mostly on her extremities and are fading on her torso. Her hands and feet are very warm and I made her put them in cold water. I think it helped.

I am hoping that she's on her way to recovery. I'll post updates and more info next time.

Photographs and Memories

Lately my husband and I have been looking at some of the old pictures of our children. It was a bittersweet experience for me.

The old photographs brought back wonderful memories of baby smells and sounds, of warm and soft bodies, of innocence and wide-eyed amazement at what Mommy can do. But at the same time they brought tears to my eyes. How time flies.

I am blessed to have enjoyed and witnessed my babies grow. I was with them in every ache and pain, in every achievement, in every milestone. In all their ups and downs I was there.

I love who they are now but I terribly miss the time when they were still babies. They were so dependent on me and it seemed like I was the most important person then but now they have their own friends and activities. How they have grown but they will forever be my little ones.

I never regret giving up my career to have kids and be a full-time mom. Every moment with my family is a wonderful experience that no money can ever buy.

Wishing and hoping

I haven't written in my blog for many months now. With 2 kids in school, I find myself lacking in time. I'm the first one to get up in the morning and usually the last one to sleep at night.

I'm not complaining at all. I love being a mother to my kids and a wife to my husband. Sometimes though, money is short (with two growing kids and rising prices of commodities, what can you expect) which makes me want to have a regular work. But the way things are now, having a regular work presents a problem. I am torn between being there for my family and my desire to earn.

I still do some odd jobs online but not as much as before. What I really dream is to have a business that I will enjoy. I would like to put up a day care or preschool but I would like to have a masters degree in education first and I am not prepared to go back to school yet. Another idea is to put up a play area in a mall or maybe a snack shop. So many possibilities, but not enough funds, lol. Maybe I can make soap, fabric softener or dishwashing liquid at home and sell them. If you're reading this and you have a recipe, I hope you'll share them with me (an environmentally-friendly one please).

God is good! I know that in His perfect timing everything will fall into place.

Successful Weaning!

I had blogged about weaning my younger daughter from breastfeeding here and I realized it's nearly a year since I first attempted to wean her. She's turning 4 years old next month and it's only been 5 days since I stopped breastfeeding her.

Yeah, yeah, it took a long time before she finally stopped but because she's the only baby and I'm a full time mom and housewife, I really did not feel the pressure to wean her until now. She still tries though, especially at night, to get me to give in to her but I have resolved not to. To make up for it, we supply her with her favorite yogurt drink as well as chocolate milk.

Weaning my daughter has given me a bit of freedom. Not much really, but just enough for me to have continuous sleep at night. There are times though when I miss the closeness that we had when I was still nursing her. But then again, our kids have to grow and slowly learn to be independent and this is one step my daughter (as well as her Mommy) has to go through.

The transition went well and I'm pretty sure we'll both have our weak moments but I will make certain we will not give in and stray.

Kudos to us mommies who are for breastfeeding. We know and offer the very best for our little ones!

Extra Cash For Moms

For Stay at Home Moms like me, earning something extra for our family is a big thing. With soaring fuel prices, everything goes up as well. I therefore find it a blessing when I get to join sites where I can earn extra cash to help pay the bills.

If you're like me and you'd like to earn something while taking care of your family then SWATcash is for you. It's actually an enjoyable way to earn extra cash. Truth is, it is a pleasant diversion for me especially when I get too stressed out with the kids.

So far I've been paid more than $200 by SWATcash and I'm expecting a bigger paycheck this month.

It's free and fun, more so if you're a Mom. Join now!

Here's proof of payment I received from SWATcash.

Funtastic Art

My two kids attended a 3-week art workshop held at our local museum. It was a fun, educational experience for my daughters as they freely expressed themselves using watercolor, crayons, pastel, paint, natural clay, stones, canvas and all sorts of materials.

My older daughter was very expressive in the execution of her artwork but she wanted to work fast and was unmindful of whatever mistakes she had committed. My younger daughter had only 2 subjects in mind -- cats and pigs.

I was with them all throughout their workshop and and I have seen how they interacted with their art teacher and classmates and how intent they were in doing their work. Both of my kids enjoyed making pictures using paint. They love mixing the colors and coming up with different effects. They were both pleased with what they've created and I was happy to see them looking proud of their handiwork.

My main objectives for enrolling my older daughter was for her to improve more her socialization skills and to discover her artistic abilities. With my younger daughter, it was more about improving her fine motor skills and also to encourage her to express herself through drawing and painting.

I don't expect my kids to be great artists but I would like them to be well-rounded individuals who know they have the freedom to express themselves in whatever form they choose. As their teacher would say, "Kids should be free to learn and express their ideas and not be limited by what adults expect them to do."

One Sandwich Only

Although my older daughter is not fond of junk food she loves to eat and is now overweight. I've talked to her about it and she knows that she has to do her morning exercise daily as well as cut down on the amount of food she eats.

One day, I prepared chicken sandwich for her breakfast. She loves chicken sandwich and given the chance she'd have more than just one. But she knows she has to control herself. After eating the sandwich I prepared for her she looked at me sadly and said, "My tummy is still hungry." She then looked at her tummy and said, "Stop it tummy. You have to wait for lunch. Mommy will cook yummy food."

I'm glad that my daughter understands her situation and is making an effort to lose weight.

A Relaxing Weekend

So much for New Year's resolutions... I still am not able to update my blog weekly. There are so many things I love to do but I just don't have the time to do them at all. I am glad though that I was able to watch the Lord of the Rings Trilogy again for 3 consecutive days (Friday to Sunday).

I love the Lord of the Rings trilogy and I really enjoyed watching them again with my family. My kids, young as they are were also engrossed in the movie and I was amazed to note that they did not get scared at all by some of the characters in the movie. My older daughter showed maturity as we watched the fight scenes together.

When she was younger, she used to imitate angry or fighting characters that she saw on TV but not so much now. Comments like, "It's not nice to fight," can be heard from her while we were watching the movie. She also talked about what she think the characters' moods and emotions are.

I had fun watching the LOTR and it renewed my desire to read Tolkien's books once again. Now that my older child is getting better in her reading, she's also getting more interested in books and reads anything that she sees on our TV screen. My younger daughter also loves browsing books and she makes up her own stories based on the pictures.

I am looking forward to a relaxing afternoon with my family reading books. The love for reading is one thing I hope my kids would develop.

Busy, Busy, Busy

November has been a terribly busy month for all of us so far. Personally, I feel like I need an extra couple of hours daily just so I'll be able to accomplish all the things I need to do for myself and for my family.

To my mind, among the four of us in our family, my 6 year old is the one mostly affected by the busyness of life. I never knew being a preschooler could be a stressful stage. Everyday she needs to work on at least 20 pages of assignment in different subjects. Needless to say, she needs parental guidance to accomplish her task which means I need to devote at least 2 hours to help her with her homework.

Doing her assignment is stressful for both of us. Being a child, she'd rather watch TV or play on the computer or play with her toys but these past weeks playing has become more of a privilege than a right. I'm trying to remedy this situation by making myself put more importance on my daughter's childhood than on her role as a student. I hope we'll be able to strike a balance and make my daughter enjoy being a child and at the same time learn to be responsible and not be overwhelmed by different tasks that may come her way.

We are all so busy but I hope not too busy to know and value more important things in life.

Long Absence

I just realized that I've been absent from blogosphere for more than 2 weeks. So many things have happened since my last post. I've been meaning to write about some of them but there are more important things than blogging that needed my attention.

One of the things that happened these past weeks is that my toddler turned 3 years old. To celebrate it, we had a mini birthday party during Sunday School. I was the assigned Sunday School teacher so I was able to plan out things to accommodate my daughter's birthday celebration. We belong to a small church so there were only about a dozen kids (usually there are less than 10 kids during Sunday School) who joined our mini celebration.

After telling them the story of David and Goliath, I let the kids watched VeggieTales' Dave and the Giant Pickle. While they were watching the video I prepared their snacks (spaghetti and hotdogs). Before serving them their snacks, we had a game similar to Pin the Tail on the Donkey. In keeping with our Bible story for the day, I prepared 'Hit Goliath with a Stone' game for the kids and one other party game which they did after eating. As expected, they had lots of fun.

While the kids were eating their snacks I inflated some balloons for them as well as readied their loot bags. In essence, they came to church for Sunday School and went home with memories of party fun. It feels good to share your blessings with others and this is what I aim to instill in my kids.

To Wean or Not to Wean

My toddler is turning 3 years old in less than 2 weeks. She's pretty small for her age but she's smart and very active. She likes climbing up and down the stairs, jumping off from the table and sofa and scattering her toys on the floor. And she's got lots of hugs and kisses for her sister and parents.

I have planned to wean her from breastfeeding when she turns 3 and because she's nearly that age, I'm slowly trying to limit breastfeeding her with emphasis on the word 'trying.' It was a breeze weaning my older daughter but it's been an uphill struggle when it comes to my younger daughter who is 'tantrumatic.'

Tantrumatic is a word that I coined for my toddler. It simply means she automatically has a tantrum whenever she does not get what she wants. Her usual style is to drop down on the floor and spin around like a breakdancer while stomping her feet and bawling like it's the end of the world. I just let her be whenever she has her tantrums. I just make sure she does not hurt herself.

I'm used to her tantrums and most often she stops having one when she's distracted or if it's been quite a while and no one is paying attention to her. But it's entirely a different matter when she uses her dramatic flair to touch my heart.

The other night, while we were in bed, I told her, "That's enough!," after nursing her for about 15 minutes. She readily stopped but she cried as if she was really hurt emotionally. I hardened my heart and just allowed her to cry but my defenses crumbled when she started pleading with me. "Please mommy, please." I just can't ignore my daughter and say no to her after that. After all, she said please.

Some of the older folks here encourage me to just continue breastfeeding my daughter for as long as she wants to since I don't have plans to have another baby anyway. Well, I can do that but at the back of my mind there is something in me that wants to reclaim a bit of my freedom. But then again, my daughter will probably be weaned in due time without me even trying to. So, I'll just play it by ear and just let it be for now.

A Mother's Separation Anxiety

When my 6 year old was still a toddler, she used to sleep beside me. Even after I had weaned her, she wanted to sleep with her body close to me and her leg usually up on my hip or leg. She loved having my arms around her and sometimes her hand is on my armpit.

When our second child was born, I placed the new baby on my right side while my older child was on my left. There were times when I had to nurse the baby and could not cuddle my older daughter to sleep since I have my back to her. Not wanting to make her feel bad, I just encouraged her to hug me instead while I'm holding her hand. It worked! She did not feel left out and she still felt close to me.

Months passed by and our second daughter grew and developed her own mind. Even though I still placed her on my right side, she preferred sleeping beside her older sister and have some "tickling fun" with her before going to sleep. Because I wanted them to enjoy bonding with each other, I did not discourage my younger daughter to sleep beside her big sister. It put a stop however to my bedtime cuddles with my older child.

With her younger sister between me and my older child, we contented ourselves to just plain hand holding. After a while, I encouraged her to be cuddled to sleep by her daddy until she pushed me away when I tried to cuddle her to sleep while my younger daughter was with my husband. I felt really bad. I felt like my older child no longer needed me. It was at that point I thought about having my own separation anxiety which led me to think about what's going to happen in the future when my kids are older and have their own families. I felt like crying then.

With my anxiety in mind, I slowly tried to renew bonding with my older daughter. While in bed, I lovingly rub her arms and tummy and hold her hand. I also tell her I love her as often as I can. At first she would push my hand away but lately she does not mind anymore. Whenever possible, she would like for me to cuddle her and hold her hand. I hope we'll stay close even when she's older, same with my younger child.

Health Concerns

Healthwise, everything's not well in our family these past weeks. My older daughter never completely got over her cough and colds. During the day, she seems fine but it's a totally different story in the middle of the night and around 7 in the morning. During these times she either coughs or sneezes continuously.

As a mom, my heart bleeds for her. Her sleep is disrupted and she's having a hard time. Hers is not just a simple case of cough and colds anymore. Like me, she coughs and sneezes as allergic reaction to whatever allergen is found in our environment. Sad part is, we have no way of completely shielding her from these allergens without disrupting her everyday life as a young child.

Nowadays, fresh and clean air is not something you can easily enjoy. We are having these allergies because of dirty air. Sometimes neighbors' activities are the cause or contributing factors to our polluted atmosphere. Just imagine what it would be like ten years from now. I hope all citizens of the world will open their eyes and do their part to save our planet. Just think about our children and their future.

Preoccupations

My nephew has been asking me to update my blog as he enjoys reading about his cousins and what's happening in our home. It was my intention to post at least 3 times a week but I had lots of things to do lately. An Extrasuper Mom has limitations too, you know.

Aside from being busy with my online work, I've been having allergic rhinitis almost daily. I try not to take my medications for it since I usually end up feeling groggy and sleepy. Add to that, my toddler has been more of an attention-seeker lately. These past days and weeks, she's been acting more like a baby. She prefers me to spoonfeed her even though she can easily feed herself. One time, she handed me a piece of bread that she was eating and motioned to me that she wanted me to put it in her mouth. I can't say she's lazy. She just wanted to be given more attention, not that she lacks attention in my opinion.

With so many things to do, I'd rather play or do something that does not require much thinking whenever I have free time. Not that I don't enjoy blogging anymore. I just need some time to rest my mind.

To my dear nephew, I hope you will not grow weary visiting my blog. I'll try to be a better blogger but please don't expect me to have a new post daily. If I do have something interesting to post, you can be sure you'll read it here.

Keratosis Pilaris

I consider my older daughter's geographic tongue as more of a cosmetic problem than a health threatening condition. Well, it's not enough that she has a geographic tongue. She also has keratosis pilaris, another non-life threatening condition affecting the skin. It's another cosmetic problem to either deal with or to simply ignore.

Keratosis pilaris is a benign skin disorder characterized by rough bumps on the skin. Just like in geographic tongue, keratosis pilaris occurs in otherwise healthy persons and has no known cure. It commonly appears on the upper arms and thighs and sometimes on the face, which is true in my daughter's case. Keratosis pilaris results from a buildup of protein called keratin in the openings of hair follicles in the skin. This produces small, rough patches, usually on the arms and thighs.

I first noticed the rough bumps on my daughter's arms and thighs when she was around 4 years old. I first thought it was part of the allergic reaction she had with one of the medicine prescribed for her. But then the bumps persisted long after her other skin rashes (allergic reaction to antibiotic) subsided. Truth is I am more bothered by the goose flesh appearance than my daughter is. I'm thinking that maybe she'll be more concerned about it when she's older but at this time she's not giving much thought about it.

Keratosis pilaris, sometimes also called as chicken skin, is more common in women, can affect people of all ages and tends to improve with age. It's difficult to treat so it can be frustrating at times. The symptoms usually improve during warmer months and worsen during colder season.

In keratosis pilaris the keratin, a protein in our body, builds up within the hair follicles on the skin causing small acne-like bumps. Although it is very tempting to do so, scratching or picking on the bumps is not advisable as it could lead to scarring. Our dermatologist prescribed cleansing milk wash, AHA cream and anti-wrinkle cream for my daughter's keratosis pilaris. Her doctor jokingly said that she was his youngest patient who needs anti-wrinkle cream. She was also encouraged to eat food rich in Vitamin A which is not an easy task considering her dislike for veggies.

My daughter call her keratosis pilaris bumps as her "spots" and she usually directs my attention to them when they are very prominent. "We need to put medicine lotion on my spots," she would say referring to the creams that our doctor prescribed for her. The aim in keratosis pilaris is to prevent excessive skin dryness.

Did I say it improves with age? I did? Well, I just need to remind myself about that lest I continue to let myself be bothered by it. There's a possibility it could worsen though but I will not focus on that.

Geographic Tongue

When my older daughter was still a baby I noticed some reddish patches with white borders on her tongue. Being a first time mom then, I thought it was just a sort of residue from milk. Still, I directed our Pedia's attention to it on one of her regular check-ups. The doctor simply said that my daughter has mapping on her tongue. She did not elaborate and did not put much emphasis on it so I presumed it was nothing to be bothered about.

When my daughter was older, there were instances while we were eating when she would cry and say, "I have ouch on my tongue." Upon inspection, I would notice the smooth like patches on her tongue again. It really puzzled me because there were times when the patches are not there at all. After some time, I had observed that my daughter would complain about hurting her tongue especially when we were eating food with spices or with sour taste. This prompted me to do a bit of research which led me to sites about geographic tongue. Finally, my daughter's condition has a name.

Geographic tongue or benign migratory glossitis, a condition affecting the tongue has no known cause but tends to run in families. I don't have it and no one in our family has it. My husband doesn't have it so does his parents and siblings. So, I really don't know where my daughter got it from.

Geographic tongue is a benign condition. It is not dangerous to health, it is self-limiting and it does not require treatment. There are foods though that could aggravate the condition as I had observed with my daughter. Avoidance of foods that could exacerbate or cause pain to the tongue is therefore recommended.

Geographic tongue is common to people with psoriasis and also to those who have allergies, eczema as well as asthma. It occurs in around 2% of people in all ages, sexes and races and affects females three times more than males and more often appears in adults than in children.

If you observe closely someone who has a geographic tongue, you will notice that the pattern changes every time. It does look like an ever-changing map. In my daughter's case, sometimes there are bright red patches, sometimes they simply look like bald spots and there are also times when I don't see anything at all.

I'm no longer worried about my daughter's geographic tongue after learning more about it and I'm instilling in her the idea that it's not something she should be ashamed about. I do hope however that it will completely go away so that she could explore more her taste in food.

Surrogate Mother (Part 2)

My sister is back and is happily reunited with her daughter. Our normal routine has resumed and my toddler enjoys the fact that she's the only baby in the house once again and I can devote more time with her. So, how did my experience as a surrogate mother go?

I've heard a breastfeeding advocate say it's not a problem breastfeeding another baby who is 6 months or below. Usually babies 6 months and younger will allow anybody to hold them, even virtual strangers. But how do you breastfeed a one year old child who is very attached to her own mother? A child who cries when I hold her even for just a short time while her mother is still around?

After my sister left her daughter in my care, my niece attached herself to me and I did not have much difficulty breasfeeding her. I think she was presented with no other choice so she readily accepted what I offered her. The only problem was she was more possessive than my own daughter. She cried whenever she saw me breastfeeding or even just holding my toddler. There were even instances when she pushed my daughter away while I was breastfeeding them both.

Yes, you read it right. There were times when I breastfed them together at the same time. I would have preferred to breastfeed them one at at time but there were occasions when it was better to give in. My niece has the tendency to hold her breath while crying, making her lips turn blue and I didn't like her to do that while she was under my care. At the same time I don't want to make my daughter feel like I'm abandoning her. So when they wanted to be fed at the same then I allowed them to do so. It felt strange but I survived it.

My niece had the tendency to wake up very early in the morning and she wanted to be rocked back to sleep while listening to music, preferably bossa nova. Her early morning habits made me feel like I had a month old infant in my care once again. What's so painful, is her tendency to pull my hair when she wanted me to get up. Arrrgggggg. I have very long hair so you can just imagine the amount of hair she was able to grasp.

All in all, the experience was bittersweet. Taking care of my niece limited my free time for personal endeavors but seeing her smile, hearing her giggles and enjoying herself with my family made up for the difficulties.

I am mighty proud of my daughters. They have been very understanding when I was still taking care of my niece. I am especially proud of my toddler who did not mind at all that I was breastfeeding another baby. She even enjoyed playing with her younger cousin. I have to admit that it was also tough on her since I am unable to respond to her needs right away when I'm taking care of the other baby. I am also proud of my husband who was always there to help lighten the load.

Surrogate Mother

Oh how I miss blogging. I have been so busy lately I barely have enough time to do something for myself. These past few days, I have been taking care of 3 kids. Yeah, you heard me right-- 3 kids. You might be asking how come I now have 3 children when I only have 2 kids? Well, my sister entrusted her one-year old daughter to me for a week while she attended a conference abroad. Given the chance, my sister would have taken her baby with her but it's just not possible. Her two other children, aged 6 and 10 are with her husband. Hmm... she could have left her baby with the daddy too, right? Well, I have something that her daddy doesn't have. Have you figured it out yet? You're probably right, I have breastmilk.

My niece has not experienced being fed from a bottle so expressing milk for feeding is not really an option. Having refused to stay at their home for a week (my family also needs me at home), my sister travelled by plane last weekend to deliver her baby to me. For more than a year of her life, my niece has seen me for a total of about one month during 4 separate occasions, half of it during her infancy. In essence, she doesn't really know me that well.

I have talked about how clingy my toddler in my post here but my niece is the runaway winner in my opinion. Having chosen me as the next best thing in the absence of her mommy, she doesn't ever want me out of her sight. Sometimes I need to heed the call of Mother Nature and if she's awake, she'll insist in being with me in the toilet when I do my thing. Privacy is certainly not in her vocabulary, not that she's got one yet.

Cooking food is not something I can easily do anymore. Yesterday, I was holding my niece the whole time while cooking for lunch. Oh, I assure you it's not something I relish doing. It's dangerous and physically taxing. Add to that my niece's desire to help me out by grabbing the pan. So from now on, we'll probably just have takeaway.

More about my experience as a surrogate mom on my next post.