I was able to spend the entire day with CJ yesterday, as I was on leave from work. I soon learned that babysitting a hyperactive toddler can be a totally harrowing and exhausting experience!

We watched cartoons together and we played “mess-up-your-room-with-your-toys-and-let-dad-do-the-cleanup”!

And it was also fun seeing him finally being able to interact over the phone, like when Conne called up to check on us. He was really eager to pick up the phone and yak it up with his mom. :)

The only time I was able to get a temporary respite, and some telecommute work done, was when he had his midday nap. You can tell that these are signs that he’s soon reaching the so-called “Terrible Twos” stage of childhood.

All in all, the aggravation was worth it though, no matter how wasted I may be. :)

For those who don’t own their own houses yet, do you already have a dream house in mind? I already have a rough design of my dream house etched into my mind ever since I was in high school. This was conjured up during one of my technical drafting classes, where we had to design and build a scale model of a house for our final project. I recall that my notebook was filled with doodles on rough sketches of the house schematics.

Looking for an ideal house and lot in Manila is frustratingly hard. Real estate costs from the “better” communities in the metropolis are usually priced four or five times as much as the typical subdivision real estate. And if you already have a house design in mind, like I do, a vacant residential lot is usually hard to come by since almost all residential zones already have houses built on them. This leaves you with the option of either settling for what’s there, or having to shell out big bucks to demolish the old house and build a new one – that dream house.

For me and my family, the quest for building that dream home will have to wait and a second choice would suffice. Right now, what matters most is that CJ spends his formative years growing up in a clean, peaceful and decent neighborhood where he can come out and play on the street, playground, or village park, and where we won’t have any fear of him being run over by speeding cars and public transport, or being exposed to a rough and “uncivilized” neighborhood.

We’ll finally be moving to our new home come May 1st. A homey 2-storey enclave in a nice, quiet neighborhood in Sucat. Conne blogged about our impending move and is quite excited about it. And so am I.

That villa by the sea will have to wait.

The Bad News:
I wasn’t able to come to work today. With a lot of ongoing projects that I need to juggle, I could barely afford to miss a day’s worth of work.

The Good News:
I was able to spend the entire day with CJ! :)

Daddy’s new word for today: Herpangina – mouth blisters, usually common in children.

Today started off differently. We woke up at 4AM to the sound of CJ’s crying. This usually indicates feeding time, and so I did my now well-versed ‘rouse-myself-out-of-bed’ and ‘fix-up-a-bottle-of-milk-while-half-asleep’ routine. I was halfway through the motion when Conne, sounding rather alarmed and upset, brought my attention to the fact that the lower part of CJ’s face (mouth area), and the upper part of his pajamas, were covered in dried blood.

Flashback:

He had a slight fever a week ago and had been extremely irritable the past few days due to two large mouth sores located on the tip of his tongue. This was apparently brought on when he inadvertently bit himself while we were attending mass over the Holy Week period (and oh boy, did he make a small scene then, ha!). To compound the situation, his gums were quite swollen and sore partly due to teething-related problems (we initially suspected gingivitis as the culprit), although after an initial check-up, a dentist friend assured us that there was nothing to be concerned about and prescribed preventive measures and gum care techniques.

He was still feeling a bit uncomfortable and irritated when Tuesday evening came. Although his appetite did improve significantly when compared to the previous days. But because of some minor bleeding of the gums, his pediatrician prescribed some antibiotics.

Today, 4AM:
I was really concerned with what I saw. Even though the bleeding had already stopped (probably hours before while we were deep in slumber land), you can just imagine how the initial shock of seeing CJ’s face and shirt stained with blood really made me weak-kneed for a bit.

It sure is one way to make any parent fully awake even at un-Godly hours. We were off to the drug store in a jiffy to buy the medicine prescribed the night before. We even treated CJ to some ice cream on the way home. This seemed to lift his spirits, because when we got home (at around 5:30AM) he was running about, shouting, jumping and playing with wild abandon as if nothing happened.

Present:
We finally had him re-examined this afternoon, and it appears that the mouth blisters were caused by a viral infection, Herpangina, which is a fairly common illness among babies and toddlers. Whew!

It’s another Parenting 101 lesson for us. Thank God.

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Other Sources:
drgreene.org
babycenter.com