Hello and welcome to Ethan Joel (and an update on the Tigno-Aranjuez household)

Ethan Joel

Nicky and Dave announced the arrival of their second addition, Ethan Joel! Congratulations to you guys! He was slightly preemie (by a month) but otherwise is doing OK. Ahhhh, I remember those first days of having that little bundle all fragile and wrinkly and pink. I also remember being pretty much a zombie and running on auto-pilot (feed, put baby to sleep, pump). I also remember George’s sleep deprivation-induced hallucinations (“I think I’ve lost the baby!”). Come to think of it, I remember my sleep deprivation-induced hallucinations as well. In my defense, I would like to say that Nicky was also hearing the breast pump “speaking” to her. Hehe. Goodtimes :p Anyway, awesome, awesome news. So excited to go visit them and maybe help out. Just waiting on their OK… And waiting….and waiting… Joke lang. Whenever you want and are ready guys. I promise we will help. We will take Zoe-zoe and cook and clean and do whatever. You know, Labor Day is fast approaching…

Bread

wheat bread

Speaking of Nicky and Dave, my brother-in –law is a master bread maker. He makes phenomenal bread and pizza (OMG, Dave/Nicky please send me your sweet onion pizza recipe – yumyum). Anyway, I’ve told him that I tried in the past and failed miserably. George can attest to this as we once tried to make whole wheat bread and it tasted so bad we had to throw it away. Ever since, I vowed not to waste time on an endeavor that obviously did not want anything to do with me. Until an article on www.thesimpledollar.com caught my eye. It was a step-by-step article on how to make white bread. And it got me thinking, hey if this guy can do it (even without a stand mixer), so can I! And it came out pretty good. This gave me confidence to go to the next level and try wheat bread. Lo and behold, it worked! Check out my awesomeness above! It tastes much, much yummier than store bought (if I do say so myself). So, I’m thinking of trying pandesal next. By the way, I managed to get a stand mixer for $15 from craigslist (it’s a bit wobbly for heavy dough but gets the mixing done). Go craigslist!

Drums

stress reliever (or inducer for the neighbors)

I took 2 summers worth of drum lessons back when I was in still in UP. When I moved to the US, I asked around a bit but never really thought of seriously going back to taking lessons. I was living in an apartment and felt that I would be causing too much noise. Then came graduate school and things got busy, priorities got shifted, and then came marriage and baby. Don’t get me wrong, these are all good things. But since baby, I sometimes felt that my identity was replaced by “mom”. In the early weeks and months after baby, I could notice my speech devolving from lack of conversation. Now that I think about it, one of my aunts told me this and it’s true! There were so many things I wanted to try and get involved in but finances were tight and time was always a precious commodity. Now baby is a little older, and George was so supportive of me first, getting lessons and now, getting a drumset! Yup, a crying baby is not enough noise for our neighbors. Let’s add a beginning drummer to the mix. Hehe. I’m by no means an expert. And I made clear to my teacher that this is for my personal enjoyment only. No professional aspirations…..yet! Haha! Ok. Let’s not get carried away. Here’s a link to my teacher’s myspace page – www.dominictancredi.com.

Sleep training and all things Tristan

pakwan monster

Woohoo! Baby is doing so good! Let’s be honest, there is still crying. But more often than not, five minutes of crying then he’s down. This weekend he woke only once every night and very briefly. He went right back down when I said “Not time to wake up yet. One more sleep, baby.”. No fuss. What we found out though is that he’s an early riser. As in, 5AM early riser. So we have to go to bed early as well to be sure we make it to work. There are days when he’ll cry a little longer or take longer to go to sleep. This past week, for instance, we had a number of thunderstorms and that spooked him a bit. Loud noises like ambulances and firetrucks are also a pain if they happen to be right when baby is dozing off. Otherwise, this method seems to work. Our baby is well rested, and mom and dad have more time to manage the household.

We think Tristan may be going through another growth spurt. It’s been a while. One breakfast he had a whole bowl of oatmeal, some of our rice and longganisa, some fruit, and still wanted more oatmeal! Hmm. Takaw boy. Mana ka talaga samin. He loves chicken pot pie (“Pa pai”) and can feed himself from a bowl. He takes whole milk at the daycare but strangely, not at home. We discovered he will take milk if its strawberry-flavored but the organic brand we found is $1.40 a tetrapack. Hello?!! He also likes pakwan as you can see above. Mmmmm.