Parrot on a PorchA Journey Toward the Little Mansion Dream

As early as now, I just know that my son will grow up a “Papa’s Boy”.  Although, he’s more dependent on me and constantly longing for me 24/7, he and his Daddy has this special bonding that’s truly mesmerizing.  Well, for one, they’re both boys so their interests and inclinations jive together.  That’s why whenever the Daddy’s off from work, I let them play, bond and enjoy activities together. 

One favorite task they do is when they clean up the car.  Since my son’s in the stage when he loves imitating what grownups do, you would see him helping his Daddy cleaning the car floor mats, the dashboard or any other accessories.   He would also get the windshield cleaning wiper and make strokes on parts that he can just reach.  The car’s one of the husband’s valuable possessions. It’s his favorite toy and it seems that it’s the little one fave big toy, too. Very lovely sight, indeed.  I just let him take charge since I know that he has a fascination with cars and I know that he’ll grow up that way.  I wish to see more moments like these.  A few years from now, I bet he would be the one lecturing to his Dad about the latest and trendiest car accessories by then.

I’ve blogged over and over how Asher loves books.  In fact, I’m thankful for these educational tools because somehow, the guilt is lessened when they I turn to them to babysit Asher whenever I work and Yayie’s busy doing some chores.  Asher reads his book by himself, blurting out loud the things he sees in the books and sometimes even do a little story telling.  His favorite books are the the Goodnight Moon and Five Little Monkeys.  He has, in fact, memorized the familiar lines like “No more monkeys jumping on the bed” of which he mumbles “No mol monkeys jumping bed” while shaking his head.  I love shopping books for him that I plan to browse the Amazon books for boardbooks and other books apt for toddlers.  I’m just glad how my little Asher has become such a book loving tot.

My son will be celebrating his 3rd birthday in 6 months.  When he turned 2, we opted to just have a simple and intimate celebration at home with the family.  We would like to throw him a kiddie party but that was the time when we were penny pinching and had to forego to make way and save for the Little Mansion project.  I promised though that once we’ve settled down financially by early next year and have paid up all our obligations, we’ll definitely have a kiddie party for him, most probably at Jollibee, his favorite fast food. 

I had fun planning for his first birthday party so I’m quite getting excited again for his third.  As he’s our first born, I really made it a point to come up with the best safari themed birthday party for him.  His birthday involved a lot of intricate party details, most of the party supplies of which were bought online.

Shopping online for party supplies is a big help for an OC mama like me.  For party shops like PartyPro, that’s where one can get a wide variety of party goodies at a wholesale price.  As it’s on the web, browsing the catalog and ordering can’t get easier than this.  There’s a wide assortment of party stuff ranging from the common to the unique ones that you will not see else where.  So if you’re planning a party these days, canvassing and shopping online for party goodies is definitely a smart move.

Cooking is one skill that I have greatly improved on when we moved in here in our own little abode. I am not really a kitchen person since we grew up having a cook in my folks’ house. Then when we moved to Frisco after the wedding, there was my Mother-in-Law who did the cooking for everyone in the household including my Sister-in-Law’s family. But everything changed starting on the first day that we were on our own. I had tons of cookbooks that served as my guide and even up to this day, I continually depend on these references to cook meals for my boys. There are occasions when I could not perfect a certain dish but just the same, the effort is well appreciated which drives me more to learn. So I’m in a constant pursuit for more recipes that I can cook for them and for me to practice my cooking skill on. It’s great that cooking references are not centered on just cookbooks anymore. There’s the web where I can google gazillion recipes plus cooking related applications on the latest gadgets such as the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. One example is the iPhone application called Mixing Bowl by Meredith Corporation, designed by Sourcebits. It is a lifestyle app where one can sign up to a group of foodies and discuss, share and swap recipes with daily. I am yet to download this but judging from this preview, I’m getting a glimpse how good the iPhone App Development was.

Sourcebits also caters to designing, building and working on iPhone Games Development, Blackberry, iPad, Mobile, Mac and Android App Development. I wish they create more cooking apps for newbie cooks like me.

It’s really unfortunate that my son has acquired asthma last year. It came to us as a surprise because no one in the immediate family has asthma nor any respiratory problems. In my son’s case, as explained by the doctor, it is acquired from his surroundings and because he has extra sensitive lungs, he can not tolerate the allergens commonly present in the air like dust and pollen. The doctor reminded us to as much as possible keep him away from all these allergens that can trigger colds, cough and eventually, asthma. Sadly, among these allergens are pets. It’s not really the pets per se but their pet danders that can be a great cause of allergies. We can not let him get near or more so, have a pet dog or cat in the house. My son has a great fondness with animals so I feel bad for him that he can not appreciate these animals up close. It would have been great having a pet dog that he can play with. I can just imagine, I could have also been shopping premium Dog toys or even Large dog beds to spoil our pet from Premium Pet Supplies 4 U, a premium pet shop for every pet needs like dog clothes, Toys for cats and many more. The site is brimming with lots of quality, affordable supplies for every pet. Watching my son having a pet playmate would have really been nice. But then again, my family’s health is my most concern.