Category: Motherhood

suicide-and-depression

Suicide and Depression – What to Do?

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Do you know anyone suffering from thoughts of suicide and depression? I was reading an article from The Asian Parent about a local celebrity, Nadine Lustre, and her letter to her brother who recently passed away due to suicide when all of a sudden I found myself crying.

My own brother, about 15 years ago, almost took his own life right in front of me by stabbing his chest with a knife and I guess the article just brought back many of those dark memories. He is quite okay now, a dad of 2 kids with a 3rd baby on the way and living with his second life partner. From time to time, he still expresses sadness and depression about his first failed relationship and has had major outbursts of anger and depression, but overall, he is much better now.

I myself, dealt with major feelings of depressions and thoughts of suicide growing up. I had severe teenage angst, anxiety and panic attacks due to the pressure I was put into by my grandparents to consistently be on top of my class that carried well over into my adulthood, which I think contributed to the demise of my first marriage. While I’ve been so much better at handling negative emotions since I’ve been with my current partner of 3 years now, I must admit that it’s just lately that feelings of depression started settling in again.
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Thoughts of 39-Year Old Mom About Her Dreams, Regrets and More…

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Since we got back from a very long road trip, life has been back to normal. And by normal I mean, very busy being full-time, stay-at-home parents to our 18-month old toddler, Tuz. We’ve gotten back to our natural body clock which is on U.S. Time Zone (I swear, it keeps going back to this time zone for no apparent reason at all!) and we’ve quite settled into our new routine:

  1. Wake up before or after midnight.
  2. Fix bed.
  3. Prepare breakfast/brunch.
  4. Do chores.
  5. Let Tuz play in the rubber pool.
  6. Bathe together.
  7. Dress up.
  8. Go out for errands or food at dawn.
  9. Work.
  10. Provide more activities for Tuz.
  11. Prep meals.
  12. Do other chores.
  13. Wind down.
  14. Sleep before noon or after.

Then the whole thing starts all over again the next day. It’s been like this for a month now.  Continue reading →

Family Matters magazine interview

Family Matters Magazine Features Momtraneur!

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I’m baaaack!!!

Yep, I’m back from a very long road trip traveling almost the entire Philippines mixing business with pleasure, that is, vacationing with family and  taking care of ancestral properties all over. Whew!!! That was fun and tiring and pocket-draining. Lol!

Anyway, I’m back online and let me just greet all mothers out there a Happy Mother’s Day! Honestly, I almost forgot about this special day because I’ve been super duper busy! I should’ve posted this at least a day before Mother’s Day but like I said on my previous post, Motherhood always comes first, right moms? 😉

On this particular post, I just want to share how me, Mahal and our baby Tuz got featured on FAMILY MATTERS, a Catholic Magazine which is featuring a handful of moms in time for this year’s Mother’s Day celebration. Let’s get on with it…

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motherhood comes first

Motherhood Comes First – A Mom’s Rants About Being a Mother to a Hyper Toddler

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This blog post is mostly a one long rant so please bear with me…

I was very much excited to write several blog posts about our long Boracay vacation last March. I still am looking forward to writing down all my stories, travel tips and what-have-you but I just don’t know when I’ll find the time. Life just got busier and busier that I didn’t realize it was already April and we are once again preparing for a one long family travel, this time, a fun road trip with my parents from Luzon all the way to Mindanao.

Anyway, going back to life getting busy and all… Continue reading →

VALENTINE'S DAY

Valentine’s Day Top Tips for the Luxurious, Budget-Conscious and Parental Kind

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It’s the eve of Valentine’s Day. Have you already thought of something special to give to or do with your significant other? Are you one of those people who loves to celebrate the Day of Hearts and make it more meaningful and special for your loved ones? Well, I am one of those people and through the years, I’ve already had my fair share of celebrating the season of love. And because of this, I’ll be sharing with you some of my most favorite Valentine’s Day celebrations that I did in the past, both big and small, expensive and affordable.

This blog post will be divided into three parts with my top 3 tips each so please bear with me. If it’s a a little luxury you need this Valentine’s Day, just read the first part. If you’re the frugal kind and it’s the budget-friendly tips you want, head straight to the second part. If you’re like me who now has a baby / toddler and you’d like a few advices on how you can celebrate Valentine’s with your spouse sans the mess a child brings into the picture, then read the third part.

So let’s begin… Continue reading →

travel with baby

How to Travel with a Baby? (A 2016 Travel Recap)

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Happy Chinese New Year, everyone!

I took an almost month-long break from blogging to enjoy the first month of the new year. I didn’t work as much, I had some legal stuff to take care of and we headed to exciting adventures as a family. Now that the Chinese New Year has just ended, we’re back home concretizing our new plans and new adventures for 2017. It’s gonna be exciting!

New year, new set of goals and travel plans. Yey! Like I said, we just started traveling again, hence, the super busy schedule we now have — juggling parenthood, business plans, work and leisure. But before I share with you about our current adventures, I want to do a recap first of the travels we did last year through this blog post of knowing how to travel peacefully and enjoyably with a baby. Plus, I still want to share with you one by one those places we visited before that I still haven’t published yet (to be done on some future blog posts). But first things, first…

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2017

Hello 2017! Three Questions to Ask Yourself This New Year…

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It’s almost 3AM, Philippine time, on the first day of the new year and this is the first time, in a long time, that I am able to breathe, relax and write down my thoughts… I hope this is a good sign… sort of like saying that the new year will bring me more relaxed moments to just be. *crossing my fingers*

Anyway, the house is now all cleaned up, quiet and dark after a whole day of preparation — running errands, picking up groceries and slaving away in the kitchen so we can all have a feast come media noche. And hurrah! Indeed, we were able to fill our dining table with yummy dishes that I think will last for another week just like our Noche Buena did last Christmas which lasted until New Year’s Eve. Hihihi! We feel so blessed! No more cooking the rest of the week, yey! I’m sure a lot of you can relate.  Continue reading →

December

December Thoughts – Confessions of a First Time Pre-Toddler Mom

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December is one tough month! Especially for a first time pre-toddler, full-time, work-from-home mom like myself. How does one do it?

Our sleep cycle has gone haywire. We haven’t had 8 hours of straight sleep in weeks since we’ve celebrated Tuz’s first birthday, Tuz has grown more and more active and restless each passing day (or shall we say each passing night because that’s when he is awake from evening til morning the next day), all the other things we wish to do on the side (like make more soaps, blog some more, make business plans, attend seminars, read books or even just a simple day trip somewhere) haven’t been an option lately because we’re already over fatigued from running after Tuz inside and outside of the house and then we try to catch sleep in the afternoon until he wakes us up and then we take turns  taking care of him again, finishing work and doing chores at night. Continue reading →

responsibility

How to Take 100% Responsibility For Your Life

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A BUSY introduction

I know, I know, I KNOW. It’s been 10 days since my last post and I have so much to share! Before baby Tuz’s first birthday, my life partner, Mahal, and I have been having sleepless nights taking care of work, parental stuff and domestic duties because we wanted to celebrate our baby’s first birthday on the date of his birthday itself, which was the 17th, a Thursday. We could have just decided to have it on a weekend so all our work responsibilities have already been done by that time and we can all relax and enjoy our son’s birthday beach celebration. Well, we did enjoy, but it could have been better. And it’s all because we wanted it celebrated on the birthdate itself, which, now, looking back, has been a semi-terrible idea! Continue reading →

birthday cake

Cake Story – Our Baby’s First Birthday Bash

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Our precious little miracle from heaven, Baby Tuz, has just turned one. He was born on Nov. 17, 2015 at 11:47 PM after a whole day of a painfully induced labor which still ended in an emergency C-section. Still, Mahal and I are just so overwhelmed right now with so many emotions we couldn’t help but become teary-eyed with happiness… overjoy… disbelief… amazement… plus over fatigue from a full year of being full-time, hands-on, work-from-home parents with no yaya nor helper, just us three all this time. We couldn’t help but wonder how we were able to raise Tuz — a happy, fussy, gimmicky little boy who wears us out every day, every dawn and every single night to the point of insanity but whom we love so, so much!!!

Having said that, my next several posts for this month will be about our little big boy Tuz plus how we celebrated a year of sleepless nights, tremendous joy, mood swings, unexpected blessings and so much more!

Let me start by sharing with you the cake story… Continue reading →