Tuesday, March 10, 2009

RainEbow Bright

My little girl has been developing and growing in leaps and bounds since I last blogged about her antics. She never fails to amaze us with the amount of new information she picks up. I don't really teach her in the traditional classroom way. She learned about the parts of the body while I dressed her up or changed her diaper. She was just a little over a year old when she had memorized the basic parts of the body, not from a book but through our daily dressing up routine. I always sang to her old nursery rhymes and songs I made up and she looked so cute as she would watch me as I sang to her. She got to know the sounds farm and jungle animals make mostly as I sang "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" to her. We bought the usual colorful books and posters of ABCs and 123s and were delighted whenever she asked for these books or pointed to a letter from one of her posters.

Now I'm very proud to say that she can sing the Alphabet Song and count up to 12 on her own. She can even read majority of the letters if you point them out to her on any written material. She just gets confused with the letter "I" which she mistakes for "L" sometimes. I helped her learn numbers by counting the steps to our old apartment in Marshall Islands as I helped her climb them. She recognizes most animals already, unlike when she was one and thought all four-legged creatures were dogs.

Last week she totally surprised us by singing a lullaby I made up with the correct words and in the correct tune! I made up this song when she was a baby and had stopped singing it about a year ago. But 2 weeks ago I sang it to her again and so we were taken aback when she suddenly sang it to me and hubby on her own. That was a definite moment.

We've been prepping her for the coming of the new baby. At first, she would refer to the baby as baby brother as directed by hubby because we're hoping baby number 2 is a boy but after a few days I said we should make it more generic just in case it's a girl. Now Raine calls the baby, "baby silbing". She is now Ate Raine and sometimes likes to be known as the big sister. I really hope she won't be jealous of the new baby come August.

I'm very conscious now of the remaining months Raine will be an only child and I make an effort to spend quality time with her. I know this will be a little scarce especially during the first weeks of the new baby's arrival when he or she will be at the most demanding stage. For now I'm relishing our bonding moments especially at night when she asks for song after song and story after story while she lies down beside me in wide-eyed wonder.

Back from hiatus

I’ve been on another very long blogging hiatus. I will finally admit it, I was pretty lazy during my first trimester. Even if I spent half of it on “bedrest” I still wasn’t able to do as much as I should have done. Sigh, blame it on hormones? Not that there wasn’t anything to write about. There were and have been tons of things going on in my little life I could blog about. I just didn’t feel like it.

First of all and most importantly, we finally, or should I say, hubby finally took the plunge and opened a business we can all our own. After turning down a very tempting offer from a company overseas he rolled up his sleeves and got to work setting up our very own construction consultancy company. It hasn’t been easy being the boss. Unlike a restaurant or a store, it’s like we are back to the daily 8 am to 5 pm grind. He goes to the office everyday and has two full-time engineers to manage. I on the other hand, being the boss of the boss (hehehe!) come to work after lunch. Anything that doesn’t have anything to do with being an engineer is my territory.
We’ve been busy registering the company with the different government agencies. The escapades alone, to BIR, SSS, etc. are another blog entry altogether. I aim to have everything in place sooner than soon. All this is new to me and I’m still learning the ropes. I was so used to being just a regular employee and left the HR and Admin work to those in the know. But now, that responsibility rests on my shoulders. Yikes! It doesn’t help that our government agencies are just soooo easy to deal with, if you know what I mean. Plus the fact that you have to file for you and your employees every friggin’ month. Double yikes! I’m sure I’ll get used to it in due time.

After I give birth come August I will most likely be working from home most especially during the infancy of Baby # 2. Soon the SAHM in me will be a WAHM! Whew! At least my blog title is still applicable.