Our World was finally complete

Being a mom of two is some hard work. And I have been busy at it for the past two years.
As one of my last post explained, this pregnancy has been nothing short of a rollercoaster of emotions. I think it was so overwhelming that I needed a break to process everything that happened and mostly to enjoy our healthy baby girl.

We also needed space to become a family of four. So we could allow Alia to find herself in this new configuration. And we had to learn how to become parents of two.

Now, I miss writing about them, life and things going through my mind.
I guess I have to start where I stopped almost two years ago.

Gaia Mayari was born on November 8, 2014 at 3:23am.

She came exactly a year after the Super Typhoon Yolanda hit the Philippines. And she came like a typhoon herself! Fast and painful!

Her first month celebration came on a typhoon day, no kidding..

I will always remember two month before I gave birth. A woman from Manila was in the Island to give some healing sessions and readings. I signed up. When she saw me coming, she did not know I was expecting a baby. She explained me she could not give me a healing session in my state as the emotions that will go through me might affect the baby. But since I was already there, she offered me a reading through cards, for the baby.

I never saw this woman in my life and she did not know me as well. And here she is, telling me my daughter will have a great connection to the Earth and the Moon. And that she is a healer and a Crystal child.

I knew about Rainbow and Indigo children but never really read much about Crystal ones.
But I was amazed as the name we chose for our second daughter was Gaia Mayari.

Gaia means Earth in the Greek mythology. Gaia is the Personnification of the Earth. She is ancestral mother of life.
Mayari, on another hand, is the Goddess of the Moon in the Filipino mythology.

I went home and read about Crystal children. The first characteristic that always came in everything I have read was their large eyes with a communicative and intense stare. The rest of the characteristic of the Crystal children, I would have to wait until she was more grown-up to check if it applied to her, I thought.

The day she was born, I could not stop looking at her immense eyes and her intense and very soothing stare. We were in for a great ride, I said!

It felt so much easier the second time around. I was already used to waking up at night all the time, I didn't take a long break from breastfeeding. It all came naturally.

But the challenges were different. Dealing with two children, giving space to the first one but taking time to bond with the second one.

Of course, there were days when I would put Alia and Gaia down for a nap, close my eyes 2 mins and wake up 2 hours later. Or those evenings when I put them to sleep, think about the movie I'm gonna watch once they are asleep and I wake up for the next feed of Gaia at midnight.

But luckily, Gaia is was an easy and quiet baby. Or maybe she surrendered, giving space to Alia while gathering enough energy to take the space she deserves!

I remember when Alia was born, I couldn't make the difference between days and nights. Each day was the same routine. Alia was feeding every hour and half or two. Plus she was a happy spitter! Puking at every feed because she didn't know how to stop eating! By the time I would feed her, she would puke then go back to sleep with a smile. Then, I would change her diaper and her clothes, change my clothes. Time to go back to sleep, she was awake an hour later to feed again.

With Gaia, it seemed so easy! Since she was born, she was sleeping for a span of 4 hours.
For a few weeks, she was even sleeping 7 hours straight at night. BLISS! Imagine me putting the girls to sleep and running downstairs to open a bottle of wine and a box of chocolate! BLISS I tell you!

Alia was so happy to have a sister. She was her property, her baby, her Gaia, her little sister.

She even scream at the pedia for touching Gaia without asking her first!

The big problem is when she was giggling so much and trying to lift her or squeeze her in a hug. Or pull her little legs to get her closer to her. Every day, we had to learn how to hold our breathe and she had to learn how to handle her very fragile baby sister.



 I used to be so scared to have a second baby. Scared not to be able to love her as much as I loved Alia. Scared not to be able to make a second baby as perfect and beautiful as Alia.


Now, I found out the heart of a mother expends in a magical way. It can hold so much love. When I look at Gaia, she's so perfect. The same way Alia was. Yet they are so different.

Motherhood can easily blow you away more than once it seems! It never gets old.

It's been too long, my friends.

It's been five months since my last post.

Five long months filled with craziness and business (as in busy!).

Five months when we finally finished building our nest, moved in, went to France to visit my family, Alia grew up too fast, started a new job, survived the biggest typhoon that ever made landfall. 

There is so much to say. But I'm gonna make it short as I don't want to write a 3 volume book for the first time in so many months.

Finally being Home is the best feeling in the World. 

It was a long and hard process. And doing that on top of having a baby was crazy. Add the first year marriage and two massive and crazy puppies on top and you have the craziest year. 

But now, taking the time to fill it up with memories and decorating it is an incredibly nice feeling. 

It's like having a white canvas and infinite colors. And having an unlimited amount of time to do what you want and create your space.

We are almost done with our living room and are working on our room. 

Being able to welcome friends for dinner, organize play dates, hang out at home for days and build Alia a proper play ground is great. Even if Alia's favorite activity right now is to draw on the walls! Well, we have a left-handed artist in the house!

Alia had a blast in France and we had our first no-kids-three-days-date in Rotterdam.

 

She got to spend quality time with her grand-parents, play with her cousins, pick strawberries and raspberries in the farm, eat some freshly cooked food from Lola with the vegetables of the garden, help her Tatay and Lolo gardening, run after the hens and pick up the eggs in the morning, have her first dental check up from Lola with her cousin, swim in the lac of Annecy, meet some family in Alsace even I never met, play a lot with her ninong Lapin and tito Sushi (I think she got some artistic tips from them as they both are amazing artists), run and run and run in the garden of my parent's house.

Alia helping Daddy Yo gardening and proud

Daddy Yo, looking at his baby becoming a 

Mountaineer like him.

Daddy Yo and I had a blast as well. 

We got to make a sweet escape of three days in Rotterdam to visit an extraordinaire friend of us, dancer at Cirque du Soleil Michael Jackson the Immortal Tour. The city was really cool, the people are amazing, Pom's family was so welcoming and made us feel like we knew them forever. Plus, I got to go to a club for the first time in a hundred years (there is only beach clubs in Boracay) and got to drink and party without thinking about going home to feed Alia. I got to go home at 3am and sleep until 11am. This was a really cool feeling but being apart from Alia was still a major thing. Won't happen too often...

I got to see my family, enjoy my cousins, spend my birthday in a beautiful house above the lac of Annecy with childhood friends, have barbecue with friends, share love and good news and beautiful vibes.

The highlight of my birthday celebration was when my Tita Catherine brought me with her for a tour of aerobatics. She is a aerobatics World Champion! Daddy Yo had his turn the first year we visited France together and this time was mine. What a crazy, breathtaking, brain shaking experience. I¨felt like I lost all bearings. Nothing was like it was supposed to be. After some loopings and tumblings in the air, it took a soda, a hot bath and a good night of sleep to feel normal again!

Getting ready for the big moment

Now, Alia is all grown up. 

She is talking more and more. She now has words in English, French and  Tagalog. She is mixing it all and start creating pluri lingual sentences. 

After a few month of tantrums due to language frustration, she is learning how to use her words more and more. It gets funnier and easier for us to communicate.

When my parents came to visit the Philippines last month, we had an awesome time visiting Baguio again and shopping for the house. But when we went home to Boracay, we had to anxiously prepare for the biggest and stronger Typhoon that ever made a landfall. That was scary but we survived. Boracay was so blessed and lucky. The eye of the Typhoon was supposed to be on us and wash us away with 7 meter waves. 

But it came earlier than expected, on low tide, which saved us from a water surge. And just before landing on us, the eye veered left, the rain calmed down and Yolanda Typhoon spared us and our beautiful Island. You cannot imagine the joy we all felt when we realized the damages we had were nothing compared to what we were expecting. And you cannot imagine the shock we all had when we realized many places of our beautiful country were devastated, flat, washed away. The number of dead kept on rising and the few images we got to see (whenever one of us could find a place on the Island that had electricity) were unspeakable. 

With a group of friends, we felt we could not stay without doing anything. It was only normal for us to hold hands and help our countrymen. Many groups in Boracay and around the Philippines got organized and started some actions. Here, you can find every details of how we, in our little way, are helping and how you can help: https://www.facebook.com/?q=#/LifeAfterYolanda?ref=br_tf

Daddy Yo is the best with tripod and composition!
Notice the twin outfit of Alia and I.. :)