Explaining death....

Meet Apple and Orange. :) Apple, the red one, is a fighting fish, a gift our secretary gave to Chloe. Orange, the uhm.. orange one, is the fish Chloe caught during her school fair.


It took her sometime to catch Orange. And before she did, she asked her papa to buy a fishbowl, painted the bowl herself, and waited for it to dry. She wanted to make sure that her new fish will have a ready home waiting.

Unfortunately, Orange passed away this morning. :( And when I told Chloe about it, she cried. :( Cried like there was no tomorrow. :(

I was actually surprised with her reaction. Why? Well, I mentioned in a previous post that Chloe gives me freshly-picked-from-the-compound-garden flowers everyday. And she would see them turn brown and die. And I'd tell her that the flowers are dead and that we have to throw them na. And she'd be okay with it. So I thought, for a 3 year old, Chloe must have understood the concept of death pretty well.

So this morning, I blindly thought she'd just as easily accept Orange's passing away.

ME: Chloe, Orange is not here na. She went to heaven already.
Chloe: Why? Why did she go to heaven?
ME: Because it's time na for her to go.
Chloe: But I love her!!

I went up to our room while Chloe went down na to the garage. Of course, I picked the best time to announce this unfortunate event - this conversation happened minutes before she was to leave for school.

A few seconds later, from our third floor, I heard a loud bawl from the garage.

Chloe: WAAAAAAAAAAH! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
*At this point, Mike was giving me the evil eye.
ME: Chloe, don't cry na....
Chloe: Why (sob) is Orange (sob sob) going to heaven?
Chloe: What will she do there? WAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
ME: O sige, let's just get a new Orange for you, okay?
Chloe: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I donwanuwan!!! I want Orange!!
ME: Okay, let's ask someone to fetch Orange from heaven, okay?
Mike: Chloe, papa will fetch Orange in heaven for you
ME: Uh, NO YOU WILL NOT MIKE!
Chloe: Who's that someone who will fetch Orange?
ME: Secret
Chloe: Why won't you tell me?!?! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
ME: It's a surprise. One day, you'll see Orange is back na!!!

This calmed her down a bit. Well, calm enough for Mike to be able to back out of our garage with Chloe quietly sniffling beside him. But when she got to school, she cried again.

Haaaaaaaaay. I want to bonk myself on the head. Can someone please do it for me? How could I have thought that death would be a concept my baby could accept so easily? I'm 30+ years older than her and I still cannot understand it.

The week in pictures....

Chloe's growth chart

We actually received a beautiful growth chart during my baby shower, courtesy of Vivian and Momon. But, I don't know where to hang it. I've been wanting to redecorate Chloe's room for ages now, so that I can hang the growth chart. But siguro by the time we do get to that task, Chloe will be in her teens na harhar.

I don't mind really. There's something charmingly old fashioned with marking her height on the doorpost. Can you believe she can grow a few cms in just a few days? I double, triple and quadruple checked pa. She's growing so fast. It's a bittersweet thing. I'm happy she's growing, but I'm sad too. Can anyone relate?


Uber expensive cheesecake from Italianni's

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was super craving for baked cheesecake. So one day, while dizzy with hunger, I called 2121212 quickdelivery to order Italianni's cheesecake. Never mind that it cost Php 450. I figured, I'll savor the whole cake naman eh. Imagine my surprise and disappointment when my order arrived. Php 450 for a wedge of cheesecake?!?! Sabagay, I must have been so dizzy with hunger I forgot that Italianni's wasn't exactly what I'd consider 'reasonably priced.' So savor the cheesecake I did. I made sure it lasted for a week. Harharhar. That is equivalent to one 1.5" sliver a day.


Chloe's pupu chart

Please disregard the dates on the chart. I haven't been coherent for the past week, as implied in the previous paragraph. Anyways, we are just so happy having Chloe fill up her chart for six straight days na. She missed yesterday, but no biggie. See the box with the two stars on the second row? That's coz she pooped twice. One major, one minor. Hehehehe. She insisted on coloring the star as soon as she finished her toilet ritual. And now she wants to make a wiwi chart. Eh? We're running out of surprises na for her.

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Some more poop talk......

I just received some terribly sad news about a friend's son. The boy passed away due to diarrhea. My initial reaction was - how can anyone die of diarrhea? But another friend explained how serious diarrhea really is. So to moms out there, please, please take diarrhea seriously. If your babies don't show improvement after a day of severe diarrhea, contact your pedia na. Don't wait! I'm guilty of waiting din sometimes. Like when Chloe was really suffering from stomach pains in the middle of the night. I thought hard before calling her pedia, because it was near midnight and the pedia might not really appreciate the midnight call. But I thought, I'd rather be a makapal mom and call her, than wait till morning and watch Chloe suffer. I never regret calling her. I just give her something on our next pedia visit.

Stay healthy everyone!

Happy Over Crap

I never thought I'd see the day when I'd be so happy to see poop.

Two weeks ago, after a very, VERY traumatic E.R. experience, Chloe was diagnosed with chronic constipation. Now, I've never had a problem with pooping. Of course, there's the occasional one to two days of constipation, but nothing that a slice of papaya would not solve. Sorry, was that too much information for you? :D

But of course, things are different when you're dealing with a toddler, who, doctors said, has one week's worth of poop stuck in the lower left quadrant of her abdomen. ONE WEEK! The usual question I get is, "How could you not have noticed that she hasn't pooped for a week?!?!" And here is the answer. It's not that she didn't poop for a week. She poops everyday, pero konti lang. And sometimes, she'd poop when she's with her yaya, so I don't get to see how much she poops really.

So dealing with a toddler with one week's worth of poop stuck up inside her is no easy task. First, you have to deal with her nightly cries of pain. Chloe cried herself to sleep. Sometimes, I think she fell asleep out of exhaustion from the pain.

Second, since she had lots of poop inside her tummy, I assumed she felt full all the time. So she barely ate or drank. Eh the doctor ordered pa naman for her to drink lots of prune juice and eat lots of papaya -- all of which she refused. Even water, she refused! I even considered just using a syringe to force prune juice down her throat.

Third, not only did she refuse food and water, she also refused to drink her medicine. It took two people to give her her meds. One (yaya) to hold her down, the other one (me) to force it down her throat with a syringe. I felt so evil doing it, but I knew I had to.

The whole thing was traumatic not only for her but for me too. I felt so helpless seeing her lying down the whole day, refusing to eat or drink, refusing to even watch tv. She'd just lie down and sleep for the most part of the day. I wanted to do something, but I didn't know what to do. I bugged her pedia to no end. But the pedia said, all we could really do was wait. If, by a certain day Chloe showed no improvement, she'd refer us to a gastroenterologist. We did use suppositories and even had her undergo an enema in the hospital, but the relief they gave was temporary. By afternoon, she'd be on her tummy, in pain again.

So imagine my happiness when last Sunday, after several sessions of sitting down on the toilet with her, and coming up with different imaginative stories about a lost poop who finally sees the light and find its way out of her body, Chloe FINALLY pooped!!!

I was so happy I wanted to announce it on Facebook. :D

But I knew my FB circle wouldn't really appreciate the information. So I called the one person who I knew would share the happiness with me.

I called my husband.

And we were both really, really happy over poop!!

Then I made a pupu chart, where stars are drawn for every day that she poops.



If she can fill up a row with stars, she gets a major surprise! But we do give her little surprises for every day that she does. Plus, she gets to draw the stars herself (all in shades of pink).



It's been two weeks since the diagnosis. So far, so good. Her appetite has gone back to normal. And lately she poops more frequently na. :)

Vday

At around 4.30pm yesterday, I got the biggest surprise of my life:



Flowers from Mike!! From Mike!! Flowers!!


I put them in our tabo (while looking around the house for a vase). The next morning, I was saddened to see this:



The flowers have wilted. The petals were coming off:



Some bulbs came off completely:


Oh well. Tulips were never meant to live in tropical countries. And with the heat now, I knew I had only a few hours with them. Right now, I have the aircon on just so I can extend their lives a bit. :D I'm sentimental and crazy that way.

Thank you honey. It's been 9 years since we first met each other. And yes, it still feels like the dating stage. :)

33 weeks today

I can't bilibit.

We might be able to see baby M in three weeks!! According to 3dpregnancy.parentsconnect.com, this is how our baby M looks like now:

33 Weeks Pregnant

We opted not to get a 4D scan na lang. After all, we'll be able to see her in three to five weeks na!! Save the money na lang. I wonder though if she'll mind that her achi got lots of pics even while in my tummy, while the only pic I have of her is the one where she looked like a skull.

How am I feeling?
I'm feeling panicky - still so many things to do! Clothes to wash, dressers and shelves to build... We purposely delayed buying things because.. well, I didn't want to preempt our situation. Just in case something goes wrong, I didn't want to go home and see all the things we have already prepared for her.

I'm feeling scared - labor pains and all. Side kwento. During my first pregnancy, I asked a good friend to describe labor pains. She said, it's a combination of dysmenorrhea and diarrhea but 10x intensified. Ah sus... kayang kaya ko yan, I thought. Then D day came, and I tell you, it was NOTHING like 10x diarrhea and dysmenorrhea! It's more of feeling something inside you ripping your guts out. Like electric shocks emanating from inside your gut, NON STOP. Like your whole puson slowly tearing away from your whole body. Well, you get the point. :) But do not worry. I've talked to other moms and not all had these words to describe labor pains. :D

I seem to not have an appetite. I see food and it makes me sick. I do get hungry at odd hours, like immediately after lunch or before going to sleep. And when I do get hungry, I crave for different foods. It can be Brother's Burger one day, then the native palitaw the next. As of this writing, I am craving for rich and creamy cheesecake - the baked kind.

Baby M still doesn't have a final name. Mike and I can't agree on names!! To him, everything I suggest sounds like a porn star's name daw. To me, everything he suggests sounds so dated and old. What to do what to do.

I still cannot believe we made it this far. Ten weeks ago, while confined in the labor room,I thought we were going to lose baby M. Two weeks ago, while in a wedding reception, I thought baby M was coming out na. I didn't know which was worse - the thought of giving birth in the middle of the ballroom, or of baby M coming out prematurely.

We took it one day at a time. I thanked God for each day that she stayed in my womb. And now, here we are. The thought of having a new addition to our family seems so .. surreal. In three to five weeks time, we will be the parents of two beautiful girls. Chloe will be a big sister na.

I am enjoying the last few weeks of my time alone with Chloe. After all, these moments (just Chloe, me and Mike) will never happen again.

Sick

If our nearby hospital issues a customer loyalty card, we would probably be one of the first in line to get one.

The three of us (Mike, Chloe and I) have been taking turns getting sick since December last year. Never all at the same time. But usually, it's Mike or Chloe who gets sick more frequently. I'm the 'healthiest' one.

Just a side kwento. The age gap between me and Mike is six years - a super, duper BIG NO-NO for the traditional Chinese. According to the Chinese horoscope, any of these things can happen:
- Mike and I will fight a lot OR
- Mike will get sick a lot. (He's a pig, I'm a snake. I'm more powerful between the two)

And then, Chloe was born in the year of the pig too.

And they're getting sick a lot.....

So I'm looking around for a feng shui expert to tell me if there's a pangontra for these things.

Chinese horoscopes and feng shui stuff aside, I really think people are getting sick a lot because of the weather. The cold in the air just leaves our immune system weakened. Plus the strain of the viruses going around is probably stronger now than it used to be. A cold used to last for just a few days. Mine has been around for more than a week now.

Aside from the weather, I also think it's the food we eat that weakens our system. Which is why I want to switch to a healthier diet. Have been looking around for organic stuff lately. One of these days, I'm going to donate all the processed foods in our pantry, which my parents so happily buy every week. I've lectured them so many times on the ill effects of processed foods and canned goods, all to no avail. To them, there is a part of the pig's body that resembles the meat in a can of Spam. Haaay.

Stay healthy everyone!