Life Changes

Ever since I went on maternity leave my husband took over our financial obligations i.e. from the electricity bill to water bill to savings and investments. Well it was a relief that I have unloaded those things from my shoulders but I do not want the fact that I am not tracking everything. He is not tracking anything as well. What a big HA HA! But there’s nothing to worry. According to my intelligent guestimate we are still on track and our expenses are still way under our income.

The biggest expenses that we have now are the vaccines that our child needs. Every visit to his pediatrician means a few thousand bucks. I just wish that our place has this reliable Health Center where we can get free vaccines and check-ups. But no, we do not have that here. So we have to go all the way to The Medical City for our child’s medical needs.

Caring for a child is much more challenging than my regular office work. First few months were stressful. It was draining. And it may ruin relationship with the husband if bond is not that strong. I am super lucky that my husband lets me choose the way I want to raise our child i.e. how many years I’ll be breastfeeding our child, what food should he eat on his sixth month, what toys should he play with, etc.

I really did not care much about the food we eat when there were just the two of us. I just thought, “kung saan makakatipid at nakakabusog oks na.” But everything changes from the time I became pregnant up until today. I have to consider salt and sugar intake and all the nutrients that goes in our body. I became an avid fan of sinabawang gulay, tinolang manok, fresh fruits and vegetables. My weekly meal plan would never be complete without vegetables. I also noticed that my stress level goes up whenever the greens are missing from our plate. So I always include it in our meal. The husband has already told me to at least cook something different from time to time. (Sawa na sa sinabawan. Haha!) Below is a sample of what I have cooked differently.

Salmon with Creamy Mushroom and Malunggay Sauce

Few weeks from now we will be feeding our child his first solid food. Yay! I have already told my husband that (as much as possible) we will follow the TamangKAIN (Tamang Kid and Infant Nutrition) way wherein 6 month-old babies are fed mashed fruits and vegetables with breast milk on the first few months then transition to normal solids. I will explain more on this on another post. What’s important today is that we have a clear picture of what to feed and what not to feed our child. I also told him that we will only feed our child naturally grown foods here in the Philippines because aside from they are cheap, they are actually the produce we need that suits our climate. Move over Cerelac, Gerber and Marie Biscuit.

Anyway, those are the few changes we had recently. We are anticipating more to come.

Till next time. ^_^