Goodbye to Our First Home

Cedro in his first bedroom (26 October 2011 // Los Angeles, CA)

It has admittedly been an extremely hectic, stressful and emotional month getting our family packed up and ready to live in the Big Apple.  “It takes a village…” And it did!  Thanks to all those who helped with what felt like Mission Impossible.  Couldn’t have gotten out the door today without you.

Brad and Eirene, you’re our heroes for being our live-in support staff this past month — First, for taking care of Cedro and sharing your love and attention and positive energy during this crazy time.  Thank you for making it possible for me to get work done by taking him out and distracting him with walks and park visits!  Thank you for cooking and sharing amazing meals.  I have never enjoyed kale so much!  Thank you for doing all the heavy manual labor necessary to get the apartment in shape worthy of our security deposit back.  We appreciate you taking down our office shelves, spackling, making constant drop-offs to our storage space, clearing out your bus to make our Amtrak shipment happen (17 boxes of 563 lbs. of our crap!), for packing up the kitchen (who would’ve known we could fill 12 boxes of non-food items!?!) and last but not least, for steamcleaning so that our black carpet looked beige again!  You guys moved mountains and made miracles happen for us!  Thank you!

Thanks also to Derrick and Jules who magically appeared when I needed extra hands to help weigh the boxes to make sure we didn’t exceed the Amtrak limit.  You came to say goodbye to Cedro and instead, you got sucked into carrying boxes weighing btwn 25 – 60 lbs. while standing on a crappy bathroom scale!

Extra special thanks to my sisters.  I hope this won’t be the last time that we live in the center of a 1 mile radius between the two of you!  Lisa, thanks to you for sweeping in and taking Cedro for long chunks of time at critical moments so I could get work done and for the legendary despedida dinner!  I’m still dreaming about the deep-fried mac-n-cheese cubes with panko batter and amazing beef stroganoff!  WOW!   And to Ging, for anticipating all my needs without me asking.  I appreciate all those days that you came to help me with marathon packing sessions.  I feel like those were the most productive days.  And thanks for all the passes to Cardio Barre, 24-Hour Fitness, Bar Method, and Your Neighborhood Studio so I could exercise and feel healthy and not be driven to drink instead!

So I survived this rough month relatively unscathed thanks to the love and support of dear family and friends.  Luckily, I had my angel baby boy with me the whole time.  No matter how stressful this whole experience was, he would cheer me up without fail.  The photos in this post were taken after everything was almost out of the apartment.  I was sad that we were leaving the home we lived in when Cedro was born, but he was laughing and shrieking while popping out behind the closet doors.  He was having so much fun!  Seeing him happy makes everything else melt away.

It doesn’t matter where we are as long as we’re together.  There was a time when I never thought I’d live in LA and now, I’ve grown to love it and miss it!  I’m sure it’ll be the same with NYC.  Even though I consider myself a New Yorker, I’m daunted by the thought of living right in heart of Manhattan with a toddler, but I’m sure Brian and I will cherish the adventure.  B landing a Broadway gig is going to be so great for our family. Goodbye to LA for now.  We’ll be back for sure!

“Ittekimasu!”

Cedro's temporary playground --- our empty bedroom closet (24 October 2011 // Los Angeles, CA)

14 Months!

Mama and Me putting on happy faces even though we're missing Papa who had just left for Broadway... (05 October 2011 // Los Angeles, CA)

This past month was a big month for me.  I have grown so much and I am communicating more and more.  Below are some highlights:

• I am walking so much!  I squeal when I walk around by myself and I tend to twist my wrists back and forth while I walk.  It looks like I’m doing some sort of folk dance or shrugging, “I don’t know.”
• When I see stairs, I always try to get someone to help me walk up them instead of climbing on my hands and knees.  I look really funny because I’m tilted back at a 45-degree angle to reach each step!
• I can point out my body parts like my belly button, hands and feet when someone asks me (preferably in Tagalog).
• My first word was “car” (or “kah”) and this past week I said “Mama” and wacked my Mama in the chest for emphasis.  I should point out that this was prompted when Uncle Danny asked me, “Where’s Mama?”  After I just sat there without reacting, he asked the question again in Tagalog and that’s when I pointed to my mom.  Needless to say, she is SO THRILLED and proud.
• Now that I’m 14 months old, I pretty much eat the same thing as my parents.  I haven’t shown any signs of any food allergies so they just make sure to chop everything up into tiny pieces for me.  I have a BIG appetite!  One morning, Mama was trying to breastfeed me and I insisted on “food” in sign language.  Mama’s wondering if this means I’m going to wean myself.  We’ll see… There’s a lot of transition going on in our lives so I still depend on my human pacifier — Mama!
• I am really interested in clothes hangers these days.  I guess that’s because we’re packing up our apartment and there are a lot of empty hangers lying around.
• I also love to put my head down spontaneously on pillows or on the bed or on the couch.  I know I look adorable this way!
• Today, I showed that I knew that keys were meant for opening doors.  At Tita Ging and Uncle Danny’s place, I was engrossed in inserting keys into key holes.  How’s that for fine motor skills?!

Papa left for his Broadway gig a few days ago but it already feels like a month.  We miss him so much!  We have been Skyping with him and have been trying to tweet more often to keep in touch.  We still have a few weeks ahead of us before we join him in NYC, but Mama’s gonna need all the time she can get in order to pack up and move out of our LA apartment!  Good thing we have close friends and family around for much-needed moral support and babysitting.  We are so lucky!