Dear Peanut,

We’ve been quite busy these past few days and yesterday was quite tiring but we managed to do a lot.

First off, your father and I had a double booking with family (Cartagena and Eustaquio-Castillo sides). One of your aunties from the Cartagena side went home from New Zealand and they met in BGC for lunch and coffee.

As for you and me, we were all over boundaries of Pasig, Mandaluyong, and San Juan yesterday.

We met our immediate family (Eustaquio-Castillo side) for a boodle fight lunch in Eastwood City. It was supposed to be a Derla-Eustaquio family meeting to explain some of the plans we agreed on for your arrival. but since we double booked, we had to discuss plans separately.

Two months ago, I told your LolaMommy that I wanted to eat seaweeds, the type you eat along with grilled liempo and pusit on the beach when you go to Palawan. I don’t know what it’s called but it’s the slimy one with popping mini balls attached to it. Doesn’t sound appetizing, yeah, but they’re good.

Your grandmothers wanted to get me 1 kilo of that and I bolted. I just wanted to eat small portions. So they ordered the boodle set with seaweeds yesterday.

I was so happy because both your UncleP and AuntieA were with us for lunch. It’s quite hard to bring us all together now for a meal because of different schedules (business and medicine school).

Your UncleP tried to listen to your heartbeat yesterday using his stethoscope. He told me they rarely use an Ultrascope Doppler stethoscope in UP-PGH (he’s currently a 4th-year med student) because of lack of funds, so hardcore. It’s a bit faint (unlike when Dr.JMF listens to your heartbeat during our weekly checkups) and he mostly heard all the barbecue, seaweeds, and laing that I ate. Nonetheless, it’s quite cool.

After a hearty lunch at Eastwood, we went to Greenhills because your LolaMommy wanted to shop. Normally, I won’t expose myself to the Greenhills Madness at this point in my pregnancy but I needed the exercise. We ate at Auntie Pairings (Tita Paring, actually, but when I took your Castillo balikbayans here, they called it Auntie Pairings, so it sort of stuck) and I was able to eat very good suman sa latik with bad coffee, haha.

After Greenhills, we went to Estancia Mall and did an ocular at this restaurant for our family Christmas dinner. As you’ll soon know, we’re not the type who stays up late for Noche Buena. As far as I can remember, we always sleep through Noche Buena and wake up early Christmas morning to unwrap presents then we wait for relatives to visit. It has always been like this.

But about 3 or 4 years ago, I’ve insisted on just having Christmas dinner (usually on the 24th) at a nice restaurant so we don’t have to slave over the kitchen stove cooking. We want to enjoy good food with good ambiance.

I’m usually the one in charge of finding fancy restaurants. This year, I’ve decided to start early. After all, when I pop, I won’t have time to project-manage the nitty-gritty details. Better prepare ahead. And it’s so damn hard to fight for reservations come December.

I took your grandparents to the restaurant yesterday at Estancia Mall and I think they liked it so much that they insisted on booking the 10-seater private dining area on the spot. So now, I’m finalizing the customized menu with the manager. Good thing I’m a VIP member so we can get some freebies.

That’s it for now. We’re also bidding for a new client so I have a lot on my plate today. Please come out soon, otherwise, your father and I will ride a roller coaster at Star City para “bumaba ka na.” Dr.JMF said mataas ka pa daw. So I need to walk and walk and walk and allow gravity to take its course.

P.S. I was able to do an ocular and a quick meeting at one of the proposed venues for your baptismal. We’re trying to lay the groundwork for these events as early as we can so we won’t “plannick.”