When I was 20 and fresh out of college, I never really understood why more mature women would not want to talk about their age or why they would conceal their real age. I couldn’t exactly figure out what the fuss is all about. They’re mere figures. Why be afraid of them?

But how time flew. It has been seventeen years since I had that frame of mind. Now that I’m in my late thirties (yikes!), I’m a little apprehensive of celebrating more birthdays and adding more and more years to my current age of 37. My son is only 2 years and 6 months old now. Doing the math, I’ll be 55 by the time he celebrates his 21st birthday. Boy, I’m old enough to be his grandmother by then.

What are my fears exactly? Anything and everything that has to do with getting old: fading beauty, sagging flesh, wrinkled skin, poor health, disability, dependency. But these things we can’t escape, and so I’ll just console myself with the thought that I’m not the only one who’ll experience these. Misery loves company, so they say.

For the moment, I’ll enjoy what life has to offer, live my life to the fullest, and feel forever young. And here’s my birthday wish: That I live long enough to witness all of my son’s firsts and to see him settled and content with a wonderful family of his own. Oops, lest I forget, today is my birthday!

I browsed through all the earliest photos of my son and noticed he wasn’t really smiling during his first few days/weeks with us. I was actually wondering if smiling is a skill that babies learn to master after a while. I was also not discounting the fact that perhaps, we just weren’t able to capture this precious moment on film.

Oh well, I managed to find one somehow, and this is a photo taken of my son when he was 29 days old. It was his dad who took this picture. I actually used this photo already in one of my previous posts, “Justin and Mommy’s Baby Pictures,” but I’m using this again for this week’s meme.


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I’m still too young to be thinking of retiring, getting old and becoming a senior citizen, but not too young to be preparing for such things.

Being the eldest child, I have the responsibility of providing for some of my parents’ needs (foods, medicines, etc.). I don’t earn that much, but I manage somehow. We can’t really be prepared for emergencies, however. If any of my parents gets sick and needs to be hospitalized, for example, I don’t really have an emergency fund available for that.

This was exactly what happened when my mom suffered a mild stroke in 2007. I had to borrow money from my best friend. That was the first time in the 14 years we’ve known each other that I asked her for monetary help. I was too embarrassed (or maybe too proud) to ask! It’s a good thing that my younger sister and brother helped me pay off that debt.

This leaves me thinking of what the future holds for me and my husband when we reach my parents’ age and what will become of our son when that time comes. Of course, we wouldn’t want to burden him with anything. We only want him to love and respect us, his parents.

It’s a good thing that my husband thinks of our future this early. He’s recently purchased a life insurance, which he says, will help us if anything happens to him (knock on wood!). He also has a retirement plan in his office. What we don’t have right now is savings. What’s left of both our salaries is spent entirely on our bills and things we need in the house.

I hope we can start saving this year. Little amounts we save today will surely come in handy when we’re old and gray. That’s not a guarantee that we won’t be asking our son for help, but at least that will lessen the load somehow.

Justin has some very peculiar habits when it comes to the foods he eats and how he eats them. For a toddler, he likes ketchup, gravy and sandwich spread.

Justin likes to smother his rice with ketchup and gobble up the combination with gusto.

When we’re eating at either Jollibee or Kenny Rogers Roasters, Justin gulps down his gravy straight from the tiny plastic container and he would request for countless refills.

Justin also likes to get a spoonful of sandwich spread and devour it without bread. This is when mommy and daddy take over. We’re the ones getting the sandwich spread from the bottle and we give it to him little by little. We then hide the bottle of sandwich spread when we think he’s had enough.

Do your kids have food quirks, too?