The Musings of a Journeyman

I can relate to this one!

By today, I would have been awake in the early mornings for 20 days.  That’s 20 days of nappy changes, bottle feedings and lullabyes.  It feels great being a dad.  Hard but great.  I know me and my wife will have to endure many more things with the new role we took on recently.  Parenting has been an exciting, frustrating, delightful thing so far.  I can only hope we grow with it and in it in due time, for everyone’s sake.

DOUBLESPACE.

My wife’s ob-gyne said that she should NOT get pregnant again until after three years because of the repeat caesarean section she had with Caleb John.  So, family planning has to be put in place, how we do it is another question.

DOUBLESPACE.

Yesterday, we went out, got Caleb John’s birth certificate from the hospital.  We had to ask for my wife’s medical/operative records for her SSS claims.  I’ll be needing signatures from her ob-gyne for the paper works, I should come by tomorrow.  Another errand we went for yesterday was arrange for Caleb John’s christening.  We’ll be having it in a church somewhere in Timog Ave. with the reception to follow in a restaurant nearby.  That’s more paper works for the requirements!

I’ll be getting some shut eye in a few minutes so here are some of CJ’s pictures as he turns three weeks old.  I wish I can steal more time documenting the following weeks, something  else to remember this by.  I think that would be nice.

There should be a place called heaven
Where I can see my son again
A place that is devoid of pain,
And sickness cannot remain,

Where babies don’t cry silently,
Where fathers can be fatherly
And mothers can be motherly,
Where we can be a family.

You stayed so brief, our time was short
Our hellos was our goodbyes,
Your stay was short, our time was brief
Victimized by a robbing thief!

It wasn’t right that you had to go
But, you, my child was in so much pain
So God asked an angel to fetch you
We asked God, “Why did we remain?”

Our love for you is not in vain,
Our love will endure forever,
Our love for you has no restrain,
But God loves you more than ever.

Mornings to evenings, evenings to mornings
Many thoughts come to passing;
Months changing, seasons changing
And sadness is what it all brings.

If I were asked to ponder
If I were to believe, or rather
If it meant being a believer
To believe in something Greater

I will rest my faith in a hearbeat!
To be allowed for us to meet.
There should be a place called heaven
Where I can see my son again.

Yesterday, the 15th of March would’ve been my first born son’s first birthday.  It was a day to contemplate.

I made carbonara yesterday, bought cake, with his aunts pitching in ice cream, grilled bangus and liempo and pizza.  Even my mother made pancit canton.  It would’ve been fun, it would’ve been grand.

Sometimes its just weird where life takes you, there was no sign warning against this bump, rather, major reconstruction of the road.  I read somewhere  that a child who has lost a parent is called an orphan and a losing a spouse makes you a widow/widower, but what do you call a parent losing a child?  There should be something to call it.

In a few more months my wife will be giving birth,  its about time to look for a church to hold the christening.  We went to Paco Park to inquire if we could hold it there, unfortunately, we can’t because they DON’T!  They hold weddings, Sunday Mass, but not baptismals.  So, we made good with the Php 5.00 entrance fee and had a look around.  I learned some things today about GomBurZa and Rizal.  I had a little review of history.

Pardon the picture quality, I used my camera phone to take them.

Back of dome church, looking up

Details of pillar, is this Ionic? Can someone help me out?

Floor

Tree line

GomBurZa Memoir

GomBurZa Memoir

Main Entrance

Plaque

Yellow and brown. That was the color theme for the wedding. With the weather well entering summer, it was a warm Sunday afternoon wedding. There were well familiar faces both in the church and in the reception, many people from where they both work. More notably for us, they used the same photo/video team that we used for me and my wife’s wedding, same make-up artist, and same bridal car!!! There was a white 1964 well preserved Mustang outside the church that we just couldn’t resist having our photos taken with, I am not going to mention who’s but I was sure glad to having seen one. Everything, aside from the tires, were all original. It was in good condition.
The ceremony and the reception were both carried out in order, no hang-ups at least distinctly noticeable ones. As Paolo mentioned, there were surprises for the guests who stayed-up during the reception. One thing is for sure, they like videos. There was even a video that’s videoke inspired, the song lyrics would come up in tempo with the slideshow. I would’ve taken more pictures but my camera died in the middle of the reception. We all ended up with a nightcap back seeing Tammy and having coffee, banoffee and cheesecake.
Cheers to the newlyweds!

I baked some banana bread, (the recipe I found mentioned banana bar) last Sunday.  With some of the batter we put in muffin tins just to see how they turn out.  Unfortunately, it came out too light in color and the texture was slightly off.  So yesterday I made another batch modifying the recipe, adding more bananas and folding in the flour instead of machine mixing.  Now, that was good banana bread.

I am going to keep the recipe secret for now.

I watched the Oscars simulcast on a local channel.  The delay was terrible because the winners were already announced on the website but the ’simulcast’ wasn’t finished yet.

Hugh Jackman’s performances were very entertaining…  And yeah, musicals are back.  If I heard it right from one of the emcees, Mamma Mia got more ticket sales in the UK than Titanic.  Now, that is something to think about.

Check out the winners here:

http://www.oscar.com/nominees/?pn=nominees

The winners are highlighted on the page.

The first time we made this trip, we stayed not more than two hours in the park. This time we prepared and even came early.
We were able to do much more, too! Me and Timmy had a chance to brave the zip line and jumped across the spillway. The few seconds of thrill didn’t even give me an adrenaline rush. Nonetheless, it is an addition to my been-there-done-that list. The sun was still too hot for the wall climb, maybe next time.

I made a movie of all the pictures and clips of Rochelle’s ultrasound when she had her pre-natal check-up a few weeks ago.  It was routine to check for congenital anomalies.  She’s progressing normally on her pregnancy, however, the size of my son was slightly bigger that what we expected.