Diary of an Overseas Filipino Wife: May 2011

Insomnia

Lately I have had such sleepless nights, and this is one of them. It's exactly 3:25 a.m. and I'm as wide awake as I was since I woke up early yesterday morning. I am restless. I guess this is a result of my worries mostly because my husband and I have decided to go ahead with the operation that will be done on my youngest child. We have taken 3 opinions and all of them says the same. In the past several months my son would snore like crazy lately, though this has subdued because of the medicines that he takes to decrease a bit the size of his adenoids. The doctor we saw recently, said that our son definitely needs the operation which they say is a routine procedure. Such a procedure is highly recommended to allow normal passage of oxygen to his brain. I have pondered on this about 6 months ago when I wrote "To remove or not to remove." Apart from this, I keep waking up from my son's nightmares I guess. He would wake up at intervals crying and kicking his legs. Sometimes I wake up and see him sleepwalking as he did just awhile ago. Can't understand though how my husband can sleep soundly amidst the loud cries of our son.

GTSN (Got.To.Sleep.Now) or got to try to sleep (in my case). I have too much work to do tomorrow I am on leave from work by the way (which is another story) I have two patients whom I need to tend to round the clock.

Supra-girl

As a graduation gift, my husband and I were thinking of buying our daughter a digital camera. She loves taking pictures of herself and her classmates and she has taken some promising pictures. But instead of that we bought her what she has been raving for...a pair of Supra sneakers! I don't even find them pretty on girl's feet but her dad and I decided to give her what she wants. She did well in school anyway, even as a transferee.

To you our daughter, enjoy your graduation gift may these Supras take you to the path that God has laid down for you. May these pair of shoes teach you not to run away from responsibilities and may it take you to places that will lead to your success. I know I am getting too mushy they are only a pair of "emo" sneakers but let me just rant about your shoes the way I see them. I love you my eldest child!

The month that was...featuring my son's birthday

I would like to think that I am good at multi-tasking, but the absence of any news since my son’s birthday probably proves that I am not. I have always been meaning to put in something after work, which by the way, would mean after preparing dinner, after bathing my younger children, and after marinating tomorrow’s lunch. However, by the time I get my “ME” time I’m often dead tired that I would always choose to parlay starting my blog.

Anyways... so where do I begin? Let me start this very much delayed blog by sharing stuff about my son’s birthday. 8 years ago who would have thought that I was to give birth to a healthy pinkish baby boy? Well, I guess God would have that idea beforehand ha-ha but other than the Almighty, even I would not have thought of giving birth to a baby boy. I have always thought that our family had this thing about hoarding homologous chromosomes and that a male son would either come in scarce or none at all. Hence, Alloy’s arrival was a very welcome and pleasant surprise. Back in the hospital where I delivered him, people thought I had an American husband lol. And those damn nurses would only half-believe that I am my son’s own mother because of my skin. Imagine being discriminated in my own country? Hahaha Dark or not I was still the mother of a pinkish, handsome baby boy and that alone made me ecstatic.

Fast forward to 2011, my son celebrates his 8^th birthday in a country not his own. Starting 2009, when my husband went abroad, I set out a birthday tradition; and Alloy was the first to experience such. We had a “birthday date.” Sadly, this is something that we are unable to do at liberty now that we are here. My children have always looked forward to our birthday dates but I could only guess their feeling of how much better it is now that we are able celebrate every occasion with their dad.

So where did we go and how did we celebrate? We brought them to Sparky’s at the Mall of Dhahran. This is the same as SM’s Storyland or Festival Mall’s Pixie forest. Rather than have them just play the Pachinko machines, we also encouraged them to try the rides that were not available in the Philippines. We enjoyed lunch with the kids and ice cream afterwards then decided to go to Al Ramaniyah to buy Alloy’s birthday wish – a pair of Supra. My kids are so crazy about these kinds of shoes I don’t know why. Most of the stores though only carry big sizes. It’s a good thing that we were able to find a pair for him. My youngest son who is already getting into the same kind of “shoe wave” pressed me to buy him a pair too. And because there was no size available for him, I coaxed him into buying a pair of chucks instead which I told him where called Suprettes. For a 5 year old who adores his mother, he believed this little concocted name. I would have had it no other way because it was late; he was growing a tad irritable and was inching his way through my nerves already. We all went home very, very tired but glad to have brought out the kids to celebrate their brother’s birthday.