Olivia Demonstrates How To Use a Pacifier

Olivia, 

You've always been a very wise little child and I've always loved how you always manage to do things your own way... like how you used your pacifier when you were around 9 months old.

Here you are in the video when you woke up in the middle of the night and mom was asleep. I had to take over looking after you because she was already out. I tried to give you a pacifier again to try if it would work because your mom and I really didn't want you to get used to it as much. As you'll see in the video, you really never got used to it at all and you didn't need one to be pacified ;) For your first year, you really didn't use it as designed but more for just biting 'around' it.

Love, 
Dada

Olivia Smiles

So far, this has got to be my favorite video of her :)

Olivia_Airplane.mov Watch on Posterous

Speaking of smiles...

As parents, it's such a treasure waiting for those smiles given by our babies. In the earlier months of your child's life, it's pretty rare, so we're over the moon when they do those "sleep grins" where they smile in their sleep. Later on, as we see in this video, they'll eventually smile for things they've learned to like. In Olivia's case, the airplane drop :)

Olivia's First Bubble Experience

I thought she would really enjoy it but it turned out she wasn't as fascinated with it hehe

Olivia_Bubbles.mov Watch on Posterous

Perfect Timing

2012-09-09_23_27_21.mov Watch on Posterous

I happened to be in front of her with my camera. Thank you Lord :)

This Video Moved Me

via youtube.com

It's funny how it was when we were young. We never really had any connection yet to parent-child type of video in the sense that we never did get the parents' bit at the time. Now that I have a daughter, anything related to a dad and his daughter always hits home to me... it often makes me tear up as well. Just like the first time I saw this vid.

Taghiyawat Sa Ilong

Hinding hindi ko pinangarap na basta basta nalang akong lawayan ng kung sino man. Palagay ko wala naman sa atin may gustong malawayan diba? Pano pa pag pinahiran ka talaga ng laway?

Ayan ang nangyayari sa akin ngayon.

Sa ilang linggong nakakaraan, dalawang beses na akong tinamaan ng masakit na taghiyawat sa ilong. Bakit? Pahiran ka ba naman ng basang basang laway sa ilong dahil kinakapa ng anak mo yung mukha mo. Ayan po mga kaibigan ang isa pa sa inyong mararanasan kapag may anak na kayo. 

Papahiran kayo sa ilong, sa mukha, sa pisngi, sa braso, at minsan... minsan lang naman... tutuluan nalang kayo habang karga nyo sya :)

Syempre sa saya ng laro nyo, makakaligtaan maalala na nabasa pala yung ilong nyo ng laway. Ayan at sadya nalang matutuyo tapos hintayin nyo lang at babalik ang mga alaala nyo noong highschool pa kayo nung tinubuan kayo ng taghiyawat sa ilong.

Ganyan kasaya ang may sanggol sa bahay.

Siya lang ang may "K" mampahid ng laway sa mukha ko.

:)

A Letter To Olivia On Her 6th Month...

To My Dearest Olivia,

By the time you're all grown up to read this, you might ask me about this blog and why was I so inconsistent in filling it up. You may wonder, what happened to the first few months of your life and why I didn't bother entering any entry... The reason my dear, is the one you see in the mirror hehe ;)

But this letter isn't about being inconsistent but this is about what wasn't written.

You see, it's not like I wasn't able to document your life. In the following weeks, I'll be putting in tons of photos and videos I took of you growing up from the moment you came out and every day, every week, to every month after. I documented it. From your smiles and even your cries, I have it on both photo and video. I really didn't bother posting as much because I would rather enjoy the real thing in being able to take care of you and play with you. You may not be aware yet but I thank God everyday that I am able to work at home and be able to spend time with you and wake up to your laughing every single day. I thank God that I am around to witness all your little milestones and even those milepebbles if there is such a thing hehe

6 MONTHS! My golly... time flies indeed. It seems just like the other week when I was rushing after the nurses with a videocam just to get a shot of you as they cleaned you up after delivery. Now, you've slowly grown into a beautiful baby girl with lots of spunk and energy that it takes us both parents to handle you. It's been really a fun ride everyday even if your crying had brought forth heart palpitations in my body and chest pains. 

Let me recall a little if I can...

0 month December - was the hardest. Your mom couldn't get up for 2 weeks and I we didn't have any help yet so the pressure was on. You were soooo little then. 

1st month January - You used to make sounds and your favorite was "a-ko"

2nd month February - You started to become very responsive already to us and our playtime.

3rd month March - I felt sad when you got your ears pierced. I loved your clean baby look before the earrings :( You could sit with supprt already. You also started to laugh heartily. You wrestled with your stuffed toys too!

4th month April - You started watching cartoons and you were very responsive to it already

5th month May - You started sitting on your own! You also started eating solids. Matakaw ka. You also fell off the bed because you roll so quick already :)

So far and randomly, here's what you love...

You love TV commercials.

You love station IDs

You love fabric patterns 

You love playtime with dad and mom

You love solids! hehe

And with your great love we also shower you with all the love in the world and in our hearts. 

I love you!

That's it for now. There's more to come soon.

Dad

 

ps. You know what's funny? I NEVER imagined myself using the term sweetheart or darling EVER. And I didn't use it for your mom at all. But somehow, just looking at you brings it out of me. There's some magic there that I don't know how to explain.

Olivia Shows Us Her Favorite Music Instrument

Aaaaand we're back!

I owe everyone major updates and I owe Olivia tons of blog updates documenting her growth (sorry darling) but it's all in my mind and I've got tons of photos so I do hope I can catch up with the backlog of entries hehe

Anyway, Olivia's 4 months and 3 weeks in and there's been tons of new things in her life. 

Her most recent milestone was that she recently started to show familiarity with people and she started to extend her arms to people when she wants to be carried. It started when she turned 4 months. I'll catch up with other stories in other entries :)

For now, here's a fresh new video of her showing us what instrument she prefers... we've tried a couple but this is where she smiles a lot and she really shows that she likes this.

Enjoy...

Olivia_Drumming.m4v Watch on Posterous

I've Never Hated Being Sick As Much 'Til I Had Olivia

Been sick for almost a week now with the worst kind of cough and colds I've had in a looooong time. It's a combination of a bad headache, contiuous coughing, and a stuffed nose. It's baaad.

As with all cases, I just wait it out til it passes but the thing that I hate about it now is that I can't carry my baby. I can't play with Olivia, I can't pick her up if she cries, and so much more. Add that to me being able to help Bernice care for her when she needs a break. It really sucks. Seriously. 

I never really got to think of this until it happened and I hope I never get to experience this again while Olivia's still a baby... well, I'd be glad of course if it never happened again period. hehe

Anyway, upon further research, I realized it wasn't Vit C that I was lacking but Vit D! We all think we need our daily dose of Vit C to boost our immunity that we forgot about Vit D hehe That and a good night's sleep. I'm a light sleeper so maybe that may be the cause too coz everytime Olivia cries even just a little to ask to get fed in the wee hours of the morning, I also wake up together with Bernice so we really can't say that the first months of having a baby is sleep heaven. 

But I've been told it'll be over soon and Olivia will somehow sleep through the night towards or in her 4th month so we're looking forward to that. 

Right now, we're just dealing with getting better coz as I type this I'm still battling both couch and colds and Bernice mentioned that her throat's started to hurt last night :(

Slingaling!

See the full gallery on Posterous

This was during the time we were trying to put Olivia in the baby sling/carrier that was given to Berns. I have to be honest, I'm only posting the cute shots... the rest were of her crying coz she really didn't like it haha

Anyway, this was a few weeks back and I'm reminded on how important the carrier/sling is... though we still have yet to get her comfortable inside it hehe

We were in a mall and we decided not to bring the stroller. Stupid dad said he'll just carry Olivia all the way... therein was my suffering. My muscles almost gave out coz I forgot how heavy baby is already and it really gave me a hard time. We then slipped in to the dept store and I decided to just get one of those backpack slings that looked cool for dad... well, it turns out that it's 5 grand. I slowly went back to Berns who was at that time in the feeding area and decided to just carry Olivia. 5 grand can go a long way in diapers!

So now I know better. We bring the stroller already and just carry her if needed. We never really got to work the carrier sling for Bernice yet so let's see... of course I'm not planning on trying it (just look at the design).

Shooting Photos of Baby

As I try to catch up with the weeks of delay, I've been going back to photos I shot and it's such a wonder how in 2 months time, Olivia's changed sooo much. When she was born, she was much darker and she's way fairer today as you'll see in the photo above taken during her first weeks!

Well, I'm sure as parents we've come to act like the paparazzi in shooting away trying to document every moment of our kid's life. I remember earlier, I was telling Bernice how I wished we had a camera shooting 24 hrs to document everything with the baby because I didn't want to miss those. I would love to come back to watching those for sure. 

Anyway, I actually envy those parents who have DSLRs coz they have really nice photos of their kids and since I don't have a camera 24/7, I have to rely on my lil old Nokia phone to capture those quick moments that I had to document. There's the occasional chance that our old point and shoot is around which yields nicer shots but it would also be nice to be shooting with a nice DSLR for more depth and clarity than living with mobile phone cam shots. I'd recommend investing in a nice cam to keep those precious moments but for me, the DSLR's been down the list since I have to focus our expenses more for what baby needs and the business I have to generate income for the family. Soon...

So, point of this post is to have something around in an instant to capture those moments. It doesn't matter if it's a lowly Mobile phone cam or a high end DSLR. The key here is to "capture" it so that you won't only have a mental picture but an actual one you can always look back on when your baby grows old :) 

 

Olivia's New Addiction

A little after her first month if I remember correctly, Olivia started to suck not just her thumb but her whole hand. This is her new thing ladies and gentlemen so if you see us around the mall or somewhere and she's up and awake, expect to see this shot like in the photo with dad or mom consistently wiping her saliva off of her face and mouth. 

With the sucking also comes the the occasional dripping of saliva from the side of her mouth. I expected this but I didn't realize it would come a little bit later. I thought all babies from birth automatically had this. It wasn't until after a month to her 2nd month did this manifest so if this is consistent with all babies, then prepare a bib to make it easier for you to wipe it off your baby's mouth coz if not, you'll find that her bed is wet, her clothes are wet, and you get wet when you carry them :) I enjoy wiping the saliva though. It's added bonding moments and playtime with baby in a different scenario.

Best Reason Not To Write My Baby Blog

Well, we've been VERY busy taking care of Olivia. Since it's just me and the wife, we really had to take this head on and it's been quite a challenge. Bernice hasn't been able to get a good night's sleep since then cuz she wakes up every 1.5-2 hours to feed. We decided that Olivia should be breastfed so we also have to live with the challenges that go with it.

I'd actually recommend breastfeeding as with everyone. I'm sure any new parent will be aware of that and I'd just like to share also some thoughts I've learned, read, and realized, to consider to give your baby the milk he or she deserves.

The Challenges: Well, breastfeeding takes commitment from the moms mostly especially at night but also with the dads since from birth to early on, your baby might ask to feed every 1.5-2 hours. So literally forget your 8hr sleeps at night!

 Mothers/your wives may have a hard time also with the stresses on their nipples because of the baby so you might also want to invest in some nipple cream. Get those that are safe for the baby.

 Some moms might have a hard time feeding in public. Bernice initially had a hard time accepting and adjusting to it but I'm very proud that she's slowly adjusting to it. Of course it's not like just take out the breast and feed... it's more like going to the station or doing it with her breastfeeding cloth cover.

 In every feeding of course, there should be the burping part after so also remember to help out in that stage especially at night because the tendency is to just feed then sleep since the baby goes right to sleep after feeding. If possible, try to burp them before they drift off.

The Benefits:  Well, I don't think I need to spell out the benefits here because your doctor might have explained them to you for the most part so I'll just go over some obvious ones and others.

 Of course most important is the nutrition they get from breastmilk. If the baby is exclusively breastfeeding, then they're getting their food and drinks all in one. No need for anything else! They're also getting nutrients only breastmilk can give, which is important to their early development.

 The other benefits are that there's no bottles to clean. No bottles to sterilize. No bottles to carry around when you go out. No waiting time for baby to feed, which means lesser time for them to cry.

 Also important also is the bonding between mom and child. Bernice has tons of stories about Olivia while feeding. Baby tends to call her mom to look at her and she would actually make sounds or pat mom to look at her :)

So there! I'm sure there are a lot more I missed, which I will leave for you to experience yourselves.

I'm trying to catch up with the blog while the baby is asleep and while work isn't as heavy. As much as I'd wanted to blog daily, it's really hard for a new dad so I guess that's also one lesson for me hehe

Cy

Sidetrack: Crazy Fact About Abortion

My bible study leader send us emails once in a while and I just found this interesting article he forwarded to us. It had a photo and a short article on Abortion with a photo of women in a rally to keep Abortion in California legal. Here's an excerpt from the article...

 

"How many of them realize that life begins at conception.  People argue over this, however in California, the Condor – a bird that is on the endangered species list – is protected and destroying a Condor egg would result in criminal charges.  In California if you cut down an oak tree you are subject to fines and jail time.  However, in California we can kill as many babies as possible.  I find this a fulfilment of prophecy that tells us, woe to them who call evil good and good evil. Save the Condor and the Oak tree and kill the babies……"

 

It is indeed interesting and the same time very sad how twisted now it becomes when it's such a big deal when it comes to birds and trees but it seems to be just some minor thing when it comes to human life.

I know this entry is way off about my blog about being a dad but in trying to post this, there really is some connection as how would be dads/moms downplay abortion as a choice when in fact there is a living child inside already. Shouldn't it be that the choice was supposed to be made "before" they acted on making the baby? Reminds me of this twisted shirt I saw earlier today, which read "Make love not babies"

Having your own child is a feeling I believe nobody can ever describe fully or even make anyone feel unless the person experiences it for themselves. It really is something. The way I see it is God has locked in an emotion inside all of us that can only be unlocked the moment your baby comes out into this world and you see them for the first time and your life changes forever.