The Curious Tale of Kuya Biscuit, Trucks, and Other Stories

I genuinely like time alone with Yuri. At home, it doesn't feel like I'm an adult stuck with a kid (who happens to be my son) and just need to tolerate him. Instead, I often look forward to talking with my 2-year old because I sometimes burst into laughter and I sometimes learn.

TRUCKS

Yuri is 33 months old but knows more trucks and machines that any of us at home combined. I think the only one who can beat his knowledge of machinery is his dad. For example, one day, Yuri asked me to form a truck with his Mega-bloks.

Me: Anong klaseng truck gagawin ko?
Yuri: Big rig.

What is a big rig and how in earth am I going to make it out of blocks? I formed what looked like a regular truck instead and he was satisfied. Whew, disaster averted.

Last night, he wanted a "snow pyow" or snow plow.

I think I need to send my son to mechanic school or something.

IF YURI SUMMONS YOU TO DINNER, RISE AT ONCE.

Food Photos and Fail Stories from New Year's Eve

I'm currently working on tracking my food intake again and incorporating workouts into my daily routine. Why? Because I just checked my weight on the scale: I'm now 10 kilos heavier than last year and around 15 kilos heavier than my breastfeeding-peak weight. Ugh!

So now, as I'm depriving myself, please indulge me by joining me in looking at these food photos from New Year's Eve:

The story behind the M&Ms: I just picked it up from the grocery store. Upon arriving home, we discovered that it expires on January 4, 2015 (that was December 30th). So we hurriedly ate everything. When we were down to our last pack, we discovered that the expiration date was actually April 1, 2015. #FAIL

Waiting

Woken up before midnight

My version of May's No-Bake Choco Banana Cream Pie (recipe from Fully Housewifed)

Above is the uppermost layer, right below the crushed graham topping. By that time, I only had a few banana slices left while the lower layers had banana overload!

All covered up

Not-yet-baked macaroni

Our humble spread

We couldn't find our corkscrew so this happened #FAIL (We did find it the next morning though.)

That's all, folks. Have a great year ahead!

_________________________________________________________________

Do you like this post? Never miss out again when you click on the cute bunny below:

Or by entering your email here:

Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner

You can also follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest for daily updates on my mundane musings.

Kids Say the Craziest Things

Yuri says a lot of funny things, but so far (well, until last Sunday), none were too embarrassing for us. For example, a couple of weeks ago, when we attended my grandson Andrei's birthday celebration (which I have yet to blog about!), while 2-year old Andrei was giving us an impassioned rendition of Hey Jude, Yuri suddenly said, "Nakakatakot naman kanta nya."

Bro-love (Yuri and Andrei)

Okaaaay. But it wasn't very embarrassing. Just a tongue-in-cheek remark in front of close friends. i'll make sure Andrei knows he said that in the future though.

Enter Sunday.

We were inside the shoe department of SM Lanang because my father was looking for slip-ons for traveling. There weren't any men's shoes in the Off-Price Show (which I'll tell you about tomorrow) much to his dismay, so we found ourselves in the department store.

Yuri and I were sitting on a bench when I spotted an old schoolmate from UP. He was actually just right behind us. I knew him but I'm not sure if he knows me so I didn't say hi or whatever. I just sat down and minded Yuri.

Apparently, Yuri had another thing in mind. That schoolmate of mine happened to be sporting a short beard, and since he knows only one "bearded" man in his life, he pointed to the poor schoolmate and said,

"SI JESUS!"

I quickly stood up and off we went to the toy department.

The end.

_________________________________________________________________

Do you like this post? Never miss out again when you click on the cute bunny below:

Or by entering your email here:

Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner

You can also follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest for daily updates on my mundane musings.

Working from Home vs. Working at the Office

So yesterday, when I was finishing my report for the day (with a bowl of macaroni salad beside my laptop), I chanced upon this infographic that made me smile.

As in Cheshire cat's grin level.

Look at this tongue-in-cheek outline of a typical day of a homebased worker vs. an office-based worker:

Save for the masturbation part, it's funny, right? But don't get me wrong. My days are NOTHING like the one described above!

For starters, the life of a single homebased worker and the life of a WAHM or work-at-home mom are worlds apart. Despite my flexible schedule, I still find myself waking up at 6:30 - 7am because a certain unnamed toddler wakes up that time. Also, because of the nature of my job, I can't do my work in an hour. Instead, I work for 6-8 hours each day. But that's not bad at all because I earn more and I don't even have to leave the house.

Yet there are some things here that I can certainly relate to. I take a lot of time to eat, I eat lunch comfortably in bed (with my toddler - yes I know I'm a bad mother haha), and I get to be updated about blogs and the news via internet.

And, oh, I take a shower before my lunch break, too.

Let's just keep that a secret.

_________________________________________________________________

Do you like this post? Never miss out again when you click on the cute bunny below:

Or by entering your email here:

Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner

You can also follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest for daily updates on my mundane musings.

Silly Yuri Stories: The Impromptu Shot

I think you'll agree with me when I say toddlers are truly a joy to be around. For me, it's because their innocent/naughty antics still pass off as funny and adorbs because of their cute faces!

Yuri is always fun to be around with because he's so bibo and talkative (he's kinda shy around strangers though). But out of all the funny moments we have with him, I think Wednesday tops it.

(Before I proceed, have you noticed the memes on Facebook? Yung about books, movies, memories, etc? I actually got tagged in a book meme, but I seriously haven't been reading books since I had Yuri. Bad! Anyway, I love the memes coz they remind me of what Facebook used to be like back in college, only before, we used to write the memes in notes!)

Okay, so much for that intermission. I know. Anyway, last Wednesday kasi, my mom stayed home to do Purok Leader duties. Free polio & measles vaccines were given, so she had the mutipurpose hall and facilities and food prepared. Her presence was also needed.

We really thought the vaccines given were for babies so I didn't pay much attention. Now, that morning, my mom wanted to bring Yuri along para wala lang, to play lang with the other kids and observe the nurses. My mom brought his records, too, just in case neighbors ask her what they should bring.

So yun na. As usual, Yuri was so excited to go out because he's quite the lakwatsero. Also, the multi-purpose hall is just beside the playground. I opted to stay home since I had work. Later that morning, I would receive a life-changing phone call. #chos

Things I Wish My Yaya Would Stop Doing

So our yaya's here to stay, at least until the semester ends and until she's finally able to pay her debt in full. I explained last time that before, we decided to let her off the hook, but because of her "offenses," we decided to make her pay.

Unlike most of the comments I received, no we're not being too kind employers to let her stay. We just really don't have a choice for now.

And to be honest? I can see Honey's effort to improve herself. Who knows? It's not yet too late for her to change, diba?

Now, I always say that I'm very contented Honey as Yuri's yaya, Honey, and that's true. That's primarily because she really loves and adores Yuri as if he was her own brother. So I'm hoping she'd change the other flaws in her character.

Since it's possible that she'll be remaining with us until the end of the year or early next year, I want to make it as pleasant as possible. For that to happen, there are things I wish she'd stop doing. You must be wondering why I don't just go ahead and tell her. Simple. We tell her about these things many times but she doesn't really follow!

I wish she would stop:

Funny Kind of Weird!

Today, I have a random story! Uso pa ba ang Throwback Thursdays? Haha. If it is, or even if it's not, I have a throwback to share. It happened to me a long long time ago. Mga last Monday.

Haha!

This photo is totally unrelated to the story, but here's Yuri showing off his "building."

You see, last week, Yuri and I were watching TV - bad momma moment I know. In my defense, the only local TV show that I follow was on: Pure Love. Please tell me you like that show, too. It's a guilty pleasure! Secret lang natin.

Anyway, we were watching TV when an advertisement of a popular milk for preschoolers came up. I really don't remember the brand as I don't bother remembering milk brands. But I jokingly asked Yuri, "Gusto mo yang milk?"

My Name Isn't Even That Hard To Spell!

Are you a victim of misspelled names?

I am.

I know so many people whose names always get misspelled, but theirs is understandable because they have unique names. I mean, when I was in second grade, my adviser's name was Tepane. I'm not kidding.

That was years ago, and until now, I still couldn't decide whether she was supposed to be a "Stephanie" or a "Tiffany." Maybe her parents couldn't decide.

If I were her, I wouldn't blame people for misspelling my name.

But my case is different. I think of my name as rather simple: Marie Angeli. Plain and common. Still, it's understandable when people spell my first name as "Mary" and the second name as "Angelie." They're acceptable because they're still, well, real names.

Now, I'm in the middle of yet another online transaction, and upon tracking my order, I see this:

Wait, wait. What was that again?

Marie Angeh??? Seriously?! Hahahaha is that even a name? I really found this funny and I couldn't stop looking at the webpage because I must have been imagining things. But no, it's really "Angeh." I can easily imagine how the sender's penmanship must have looked like, but it would take guts for the Xend employee to type my name as "Angeh" rather than the name that makes sense, "Angeli."

I salute you! Hahaha ano ba? Brain soup much.

After getting over the name part and proceeding to actually tracking my package, I headed over to the link to LBC as indicated below.

I felt relief when I found out my package was already on its way, and I felt more relief when a more sensible LBC employee figured out what my second name was.

But wait, what's that? Upon further inspection, I found this:

Photo: http://www.acclaimimages.com/

Hahaha nakakaloka!

Well, in fairness, this was not the first time my surname was spelled this way, so I'm taking it with a grain of salt. Wala lang, nakakatawa lang that both my name and surname were murdered in just one transaction!

What about you? Any name mishaps lately? :D

_________________________________________________________________

Do you like this post? Never miss out again when you click on the cute bunny below:

Or by entering your email here:

Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner

You can also follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest for daily updates on my mundane musings.

Long Day Friday

On Thursday night, I prayed to have these things in my heart: patience, wisdom, understanding and compassion. To be honest, I pray for these every night (more often during workouts), but I didn't know I will be fully tested come Friday.

1. Yaya Woes

It started  during the morning, when it wasn't 9:30am yet and I have already "spoken" to Honey three times. I do not really scold her (I leave that to the elders), but I do make "sermon." The first one was when she took forever in the bathroom taking a shower. She's really vanidosa, and I've come to accept it. The problem was that we were alone in the house, and I tried to teach Yuri to pee in the bathroom. Inevitably, he peed on me. We couldn't change because all our clothes are upstairs and we were dripping wet. I called to Honey and told her na bilisan ang pagligo.

So after around 40 minutes, she finally came out of the bathroom. I thought we could change na. Hala, she took another 20 minutes upstairs. What is she doing? Fixing her hair? Doing her makeup? Haller, andito lang kami sa bahay. I was really exasperated because Yuri and I stunk with pee already, and she, the yaya, is applying creams whatsoever pa on her face. Lord, help.

The second time that morning that I sermoned was when she ate all freshly cooked chorizo, while the rest of us ate the leftover pancit from last night's dinner. I left some pancit for her, but yes, she chose to ate the freshly cooked food which was supposed to be our lunch. The third time she got another sermon from me because she and the neighbor's yaya spent maybe around 20 minutes chismisan. I looked out the window and saw that she just carried Yuri over her arm and her entire attention was directed toward the other yaya. I didn't want to scold her right then and there para hindi mapahiya. Hay Lord!

2. Neighbor Woes

Some of you might have already known na kontra ko talaga ang maingay. I understand if it's noisy in school, inside the classroom, in the mall, or where else, because noise is perfectly acceptable in these places. However, I really get irritated when people bawl out at the karaoke in the middle of a guarded subdivision. I even wrote about this before. The problem with before is that the people singing (or just plainly making noise) lived outside the subdivision, so I couldn't do anything about it.

Yesterday, though, the noisy people lived just on our street. In fact, they live just after a vacant lot beside our house. Naman, tanghaling tapat, they're singing their hearts out to music like Pusong Bato. And it's Yuri's siesta time, so the Tiger Mom in me was really irritated. Actually, I felt insulted because these people have no regard for other people. Worse, they don't even live here. They are just visitors of the woman married to this foreigner.

I called the guards first. I told them of my complaint, and would you believe the guard who answered me only said, "Ma'am, wala pong nagvi-videoke." Can you believe that? May CCTV ba kayo sa bawat bahay? My gosh! I didn't have a choice but to take the matter into my own hands. I went to the neighbors' house and told them that we get disturbed by their singing, and it would have been okay, but my son is already sleeping. Keep in mind that I spoke to them in a very reverent manner. Just when I was about to return home, somebody made parinig. I didn't really understand what she said, so I'll leave you to your imaginations with that.

Of course, I called the guards again and told them they should not have dismissed my complaint so easily when my complaint was true after all. Hay Lord. However, they did quiet down after I went to their house, so all's well that ends well.

After that, I was so stressed that I resorted to eating this fruit bar:

My only consuelo was that one bar has only around 80 calories. Say what?

3. Teeny-Bopper Woes

Scary Scary Saturday!

The other night, while I was prepping Yuri for bedtime (I think I was giving him a sponge bath), the peace and quiet was interrupted by frantic screams from upstairs.

Of course, we all wondered why Honey (Yuri's yaya) screamed. She ran downstairs and told us.
You see, above her bed in her bedroom, there's a trapdoor that leads to the "inside" of the roof. Can you imagine it? Here's a photo of said trapdoor.

Not really the stuff horror movies are made of - or so we thought.

Now, several months ago, it has been blown open by the wind. For reasons unknown, Honey left it as is. Imagine this: the space between our space and ceiling is a big and dark and damp crevice. It's like an attic: a cave-like version of it. Now imagine sleeping on a bed under an open trapdoor that leads to a virtual cave.

Up to this day, I still couldn't understand why Honey, who's also a scaredy cat like I am, didn't bother closing the trapdoor.

So let's go back to Saturday. We were peacefully doing our pre-bedtime rituals when Honey frantically screamed upstairs

Ganito kasi yun.

Yuri-isms: Funny and Sweet Anecdotes

The photo above has absolutely no connection to this post (nor do the other photos below). I just especially love that photo because I caught Yuri mid-fall. I was about to take his photo outside the house when he ran toward me, lost his balance, and I was able to capture it on camera! He looks like a break-dancer, no? Hahaha. I love it!

Anyway, here are the different "conversations" I've had with Yuri that I want to remember:

What does the utot say?
Me making large farty noises while Yuri laughs
Me: Pooooot!
Yuri: Hahaha!
Me: Brrrroooot!
Yuri: Hahaha!
Me: Ikaw naman. What does the utot say?
Yuri: (silent for a while, after 5 minutes)
Pft.

Naks! Demure! (More laughing ensues)

______________________________

Yuri takes book from me and intentionally turns it upside down:

Me: Baliktad baby
Yuri returns it to its right position. With a tiny voice, he says: Tama?
Me: Yes baby!
Yuri: Yeys! Ayus!

______________________________

One night, before sleeping, Yuri lined up all his stuffed toys to rub noses with them. In Pinoy-speak, nose to nose.

Yuri: Ader (Tigger), nose nose. *rubs noses*
Yuri: Pooh, nose nose. *rubs noses*
Yuri: Jawi (Jollibee), nose nose. *rubs noses*
Yuri: Opus (Octopus), nose nose.

Then, before he could rub noses with Octopus, he turned to me in shock.

Yuri: Opus uya (wala) nose!

This is the stuffed toy in question:

______________________________

We recently started selling load here in the neighborhood, and since I was home every day, I was in charge of the actual selling.

It is a good thing I have an assistant...

Me double-checking the customer's number before sending the load: 0922--
Yuri: Tama, tama!

______________________________

When Yuri was a little newborn baby, I used to sway him back and forth in my arms while humming the lullaby my dad sung to us when we were young (that's around 30 years since he started singing it to my older brother).