The Weaning Comedy

So we started the process of weaning.  I'll tell more about it on a separate post but on this post, I'm sharing my tragedy brought by weaning and pepper.   The title says comedy not tragedy, right?  Really, it's a tragedy but it's too surreal that I ended up laughing on me. On my stupidity, that is.

Hubby and I finally decided that we'll formally start the Little Spanish Pinay's weaning process.  I started thinking of ways to successfully do this.  I've been reading and nothing has really worked well for us.  So I finally resorted to my mom's old way - put something on the nipples to make it taste baaaad.

Still it was tricky because I couldn't really think of what spice or food to use. 

Garlic? Nah. LSP loves garlic. She eats a whole clove of pickled garlic, you know?

Onions perhaps? - yeah, no. She also eats onions. She especially loves those pickled baby onions in the jar.

Ginger? sounded promising. I did try. She made some faces, said blah! But proceeded with her normal business. Fail.
 

I desperately rummaged through my spice drawer and ding! Dried cayenne pepper.   Now, LSP has a relatively high tolerance on spicy food.  Relatively for kids her age, if I can make that clear.  She devoured one of those chocolate with chili brought to us by her godfathers when they visited Italy.  So I told myself cayenne pepper should do it.

 Dried cayenne pepper

I took a piece, run it down the faucet to wet, squeezed a bit and wipe it down the nipples. Then I thought I'm ready to face her. Until I felt the burning sensation. Then in panic, I tried to wash it down with water. Big mistake, people. Water DOES NOT help. It worsens the burning sensation! And man alive, IT. HURTS! For the life of me, I was in total lost of what to do.

By this time, I was already cyring in pain.  Hugging myself, I walked back and forth the hallway.  Hissing and ahhh-ing.  I sat down the foot of our staircase and desperately cried.  Poor hubby he didn't know how to help me.  He kept on telling me to try and wash it down.  With desperate tone I said I already tried and it just got worst.

You'd think that's the worst part?  No, missy, no.  Too annoyed of my own stupidity, I scratched my eyes and my whole face while wiping off the tears.  Suddenly I couldn't open my eyes.  You. have. got.to.be.kidding.me! Of course I touched my eyes with the very same hand I used to crush the pepper. 

I thought I was gonna go blind.

I was screaming and jumping.  And then I found myself slopping down the floor almost like a toddler with the meltdown at the middle of a supermarket. 

Hubby was like "what? what? what's happening with you?"

I'm like "My eyes! ahhhhh! my eyes!"

and he's like "what? what? what about your eyes????"

I'm like "My eyes! they're burning! I can't even open them!"

and then he's like "Try to open your eyes! open them!"

and I'm like  "Did I just tell you I CAN'T open them? How the hell would I open them if I can't open them???"

Gosh, I swear I felt like I was Larry from the Three Stooges.

Then I suddenly found myself laughing my heart out because of the total insanity of what I have just done to myself.   Totally a mess.

Good thing I remembered one of the episodes from Bones where Hodgins ate something really spicy and drank a glass of water but made the burning sensation even worse.  And Angela told him never drink water with spicy food.  Should be milk!

So the rest of my story was just hubby wiping my eyes with cotton soak into milk... and yes, I also wiped milk on my nipples that were still burning at that time.  That part, I did on my own... coz you know...

And in case you're wondering,  I did not use breastmilk. 

Come to thnk of it, I should have tried breastmilk.  Just to know, you know.

Fin.



Christmas DIYs and Recycling

Since I've been really committed to being green (whenever I can) and frugal,  I have sworn to not buy new Christmas decors nor buy gift wrappers.  I sworn to use our old Christmas decors and if they are not enough, take out my magic DIYer wand.  I sworn to use papers I already have for gift wrappers and make them look Christmas-y so then I won't have to buy gift wrappers. Sounds extreme?  A bit.  It's actually quite hard to resist the temptation of buying those super lovely Christmas decors and ornaments from the store whenever I see them... but I am so doing it! **patting my back**

I'll probably won't be able to complete decorating the house but with the close-to-none extra time I have, I'm just doing what I can.  And I am quite pleased about the whole effort so here I am showing 'em off.  You are warned:  there'll be stars everywhere!

Entrance hall.  Remember the wall decor I created using pistachio shells?  There they still are.  The paper snowflakes on the side are just paper cut outs using normal printing papers.  The mistletoes on the yellow and green vases are from the tree.  The stars are from a kraft and cereal boxes.

The plant/tree that I always thought to be mistletoe are just taken from the nearby park.  Thank you my fellow mommy bloggers and twitter buddies, I have learned something new..  It's not mistletoe, Spanish Pinay.  It's Holly!

Some more 3D stars this time out of magazine covers

and another set of 3D stars from cereal boxes

Yet another star from cereal box.  Candle (ok, with this one, I couldn't resist... I bought it. But for 2 euros, it was begging to climb my shopping cart and so I gave in). Decorative sand = expired baby cereal mix and glitters! That's a winner I tell you.  The gold small balls are from a broken old Christmas decors and finally, the pine cone I picked from one of our walks in the mountains one summer day

Parol (Fillipino Christmas lantern).  This was a necessity for me to make. 

Blame it on homesickness.  This parol is made out of barbeque sticks.  The cellophanes are store brought while the white tissue papers are recycled from the pictures frames I bought ages ago.  Stores would usually wrap fragile items with these type of paper tissues.  Yes, I also keep those. Holler if anyone wants a tutorial!

Gifts wrapped so far:  The brown papers from the dining chairs packaging we ordered online months ago.  The different ornaments used are:  magazine papers, some colored craft papers I already have, yarn, cupcake papers from a tin can of danish cookies and of course, glitters! I certainly think glitters is made for Christmas!

  

 I'll probably update this post if I am able to add some more Christmas decors at home for now, that's all the humble abode got.   I still need a Christmas wreath for the door.  Spell DIY and RECYCLE!

Disclaimer:  Don't be fooled by the neat pictures... the house mess is kicked off the camera radar ;-)

Hot Mami

Hot mess, that is!!

 

It's been really chaotic at home these days. Not that I am complaining as all three of us in our household  are all healthy and so much inlove with each other but things and schedules are all crazy and me, being a scattered-brain to start with, can't just keep up with this crazy, crazy phase in our family life.

 

As I was writing drafting this post, I was in the commissary office waiting for my name to be called. Don't worry, I didn't do anything bad! The only record I have in this country is that I was caught without a seat belt inside a moving car. Long story, but yeah, I am already an offense maker.

 

Anyhooooo, reason that I am here is that I need to get an affidavit of loss for my ID.  I lost it practically without knowing how and when.  I'm kind of in a hurry to get it replaced as we are in the middle of processing some important documents.

 

And hoo, hah! I just learned that I had no idea where my passport is. OUR passports! They are all in one pouch and the location of the said pouch has just decided to elude my memory.  After putting our house upside down, inside out, thank God I was finally able to find 'em.

 

Did I mention already that our house is in total jumble right now? Unshelved (yes, accept that as a word as I have no time to check the dictionary right now, mkay?) groceries are in the hallway and everywhere in the floor kitchen. Documents on top of every furniture. Unloaded dishwasher. A mountain of dirty dishes.  Unfolded clothes. Unmade beds. Gooey bathrooms. Toys everywhere (ok, that is forgivable). Bunny dusts on the floor, everywhere. Umm, that's it. I shall not continue describing the state of the house right now before I start to pick my eyebrows and eat 'em.

 

And oh! I can't count how many days hubby and I haven't eaten a decent lunch. We simply couldn't find time to cook and well, even sit down together and munch each other. I mean, munch something together.   

 

My day job? Not spared from all my hullabaloos... I did mistakes here and there that could have hurt my career if only my bossess do not know me. 

 

Ok, so my name was called in the commissary and proceeded inside the office to tell them my story.  I sat on the chair infront of the table where the officer is seated on the other side.  He asked me what is my business there and just before I could open my mouth, my stupid very hungry tummy made the most awful, embarrassing sound it ever made in my whole entire life.  I was hoping the officer didn't hear any of it but judging from his awkward facial expression, there was no denying that he didn't hear it.  My face was burning with embarrassment and with a sheepish smile, I just said "Uhm, I haven't had lunch, sorry".  And the rest of the 10 minutes was just me stammering in Spanish.

 

Good thing the officer new I am already married otherwise, he might have been thinking by now "Poor girl, she'll surely be single for the rest of her life".  Or perhaps he's thinking something like "poor husband...".

 

I couldn't even imagine if I would be able to survive the past week but I'm here, finishing this article so  I guess yes, I did survive last week.  I survived it with bruises and an ego resting on the floor but I survived.  Because mamas have no other option but to survive, right?

 

Tell me I'm not the only one who has days like this.