Hi! My name is Joshua Isaac Roberto. I was born supernaturally by the miracle of adoption to Ardy and Tingting Roberto when I was 7 months old. My name, Joshua, means "God saves" and I saved my Mama and Daddy from the heartache and longing for a child. Now we're a family! I found out that my Dad is a writer so I asked him to ghost write this blog for me while I try to get a bigger pair of typing hands.
Joshua: Dad! What's that (pointing to the blood transfusion pack being transfused via IV into Joshua's Mom).
Dad: That's hot sauce. (Deadpan look.) Josh: Oh... why does Mama need hotsauce in her body? Dad: So that when we kiss her, it will be spicy! (Your Mama is a hot mama!) Josh: Oh... (looking confused.) Dad: Got ya! My Mama is at The Asian Hospital again. She went for a check-up with my Dad and based on her tests (she has anemia), the doctor ordered her to be confined for a blood transfusion.
Contentment is feeding your baby boy oatmeal. This was taken about two years ago when Joshua had to be fed. Now he has to be forced not to eat too much! :-) No problem. He's such a hearty eater.
I was kissing my Joshy Boy good night and readying him for bed (which means: giving him his MiMi, kissing his forehead, reading him a story and/or singing a lullabye).
As I kissed his forehead, he told me :
Daddy, don't kiss me naman. You're so baho eh... You did not take a bath like me.
Oh, sorry, Joshua. But I brushed my teeth naman ah! (I tried smelling my shirt and my underarm, if indeed I smelled bad, but no naman.) Hmmm was this boy pulling my leg again?
Okay, Josh. I will just sing you a lullabye, okay?
Okay, Dad. But no kissing.
Okay, sure my son, my love.
Baby, baby, baby ooh! (I sing the Justin Bieber song like a lullabye just to pull his leg. I do this every night to kid him.)
No, Dad! (Joshua starts covering his ears. First time he has done this..)
Don't sing Ba-by, Ba-by, Ba-by o-oh! It's too loud. Not like that. Don't sing Ba-by, Ba-by, Ba-by oooh! It's too loud naman!
Okay, anak. Sorry. Okay, here we go (Oh how I wish I had taped his voice as he was saying/singing Justin Bieber).
Then I proceed to sing, our classic Brahms lullabye mash up,
Lullabye, Joshua Boy, Oh how we love you sooo mu-uch! Go to sleep, our Joshy Boy, how we lo-o-ove you so mu-uch! Lalalu, lalalu....
Ayan, okay. Thanks Dad.
Then Josh closes his eyes and goes off to dream land.
Thank You Lord for such a wonderful, funny, boy.
With apologies to Justin Bieber who will be visiting the Philippines to do a concert this May.
For those who have been living under a rock and don't know the Bieber song, here's the MTV on Youtube which has been viewed for only 520MILLION times! Yikes!
Last night, while at the office, I called home to check on Josh and was surprised to hear Joshy Boy's voice:
"Hi Daddy! I misss yoooooo!"
It was the first time he picked up the phone on me and the first time he uttered those precious words on the phone to me. I think he truly missed me because we had spent most of the day together before I went to the office at 4pm.
That's not me in the picture. But I do love pancakes like that Bunny Rabbit does. I haven't tried it as a hat though...
Every Saturday morning, my Daddy Papa and Mama bring me to McDo for a big breakfast of Pancakes and eggs. They bring our own honey because they don't want me to be super hyper the whole day -- which is what happens when I eat the McDonald's pancakes with their super sweet and sugary syrup.
On other days, manay Lola cooks hotcakes mixed with super healthy grounded flaxseeds to offset the mound of yummy but heartclogging butter on my cakes.
Sorry, we've been absent from blogging about our lives. We recently had a year long sabbatical in Tagaytay where we lived for half of the year... Now we're back in Makati and back to the heat of the city! :-( Love you all!
Here I am running to my Daddy at the New World Hotel poolside. I am in obvious need of a haircut. The things that drinking milk, spiked with the vitamins and stuff that my parents put in it, like growing taller faster, having wrestling legs and...yes, growing hair on my head faster than the grass in the park. In a few days, I'll be having my dedication. Until then...
There hasn't been much of a chance to wear these kind of hooded clothes and jackets in warm manila lately, so my Dad just asked me to wear this just for kicks. He thinks that I look very cute in this.
I usually have my evening walk in Greenbelt 1 to 5 with Yaya and Lola. This precedes my bath and sleep.
My Dad was going to get a haircut himself and saw me walking around.
"Joshua!"
He took my hand and we walked (I can already walk with someone holding just one hand! Ha ha) to the barber shop.
My hair has been unweildy and long. I wake up and I look like a 70s rock star. My Mama always laughs at me.
I sat on my Dad's lap and Carlo, his barber, started snipping away.
I was too engrossed with this big brush while Carlo was cutting my hair. (He said, that I was so behaved. Other kids would start crying, according to Carlo.)
My Mom and Dad watched Paul Potts last October 8. That day happened to be my Momma's birthday as well.
The concert was Dad's gift for Momma. She loves the opera and she loves to sing. Every morning she sings "The Sound of Music" to me.
The Hills are alive!! ...with the Sound of MUUUUsic! Ah haaa haaa haaa!
That makes my day and opens up my earlobes.
Well, I was sound asleep when they left to watch the concert (Paul Potts is this British guy who won the reality tv show, Britain's Got Talent and his audition where he sang Nessun Dorma got more than 3 million hits on YouTube!!). Anyway, at around 10pm, Momma's friends started to come around and wait for Momma and Dada to come back from the concert.
Because my Momma wanted to go and have a midnight snack at Cafe Adriatico after the concert, my Dada had to say that has was having LBM and that they had to go home already. (Isn't that lying? Someone please explain to me why this is okay?)
Well, Momma was surprised when she opened the door to see me up and with so many people around me! Ninang Mae, Ninang Sharon, Ninong Myki and Ninang Bel, Ninang Boom, Kuya Misha and Tita Gina, Tita Theo (who just got out of the hospital for surgery after being stabbed by a mugger) and Tito Howie.
They all had ice cream and cake while I had my big bottle of ... milk.
Life is good and my Momma and Daddy were all smiles.
I thought it was morning already and so I was up until 1am... it took a while before my motor stopped running and realized that I needed more sleep.
I love to sleep. I love being here. Thank You Lord :-)
It was my parent's anniversary yesterday. They were supposed to go out of town to celebrate, but they also had a big event and things sort of 'happened' like they usually do. So, my Mama took me with her (yes!) and boy did my eyes almost pop out of my sockets when I saw how big this house was that we visited.
I was told that this wasn't a house but a hotel.
Space!
Thank You Lord for the wide open space!
Space to run (well, walking very fast with my Daddy holding my hands) and crawl!
I felt like I could run and crawl forever.
Space facinates me. How long will it take for space to run out? What if I walked outside the hotel and kept on walking and crawling? Where would I end up? What if I flew upwards towards the sky? Where would I be tomorrow?
I slept like a baby (wait, I am a baby) after 7pm and they got someone to bring a crib to their hotel room where I promptly lay down and dozed off into dreamland... Good night. :-)
Wow. I can't believe it's been 20 days since I last blogged.
I just came back from my 4th swimming lesson since I entered my new life as a Roberto.
The past 3 weeks have been hectic.
My Dad read somewhere that kids, heck, babies today live lives of such complexity. My parents are reading a hundred and one books on how to turn me into a genius, a rock star, a mathematician, an Olympic swimmer and clown (they like it when I make them laugh) all at the same time.
Such are the pressures of living in the new world.
Come on.
I just turned 9 months old last September 17.
My Daddy and Mama actually made a big deal out of it by throwing an impromptu party at the office. (Yes, I've made quite a number of new friends who are much bigger and older than I am. They talk weird and try to make weird faces at me, but I don't bite into any of that. I'm too over that already.)
But it was very sweet of them to celebrate my 9th month.
Talk is in the air about my dedication and my 1st birthday. I hope I get some nice gifts. I wouldn't mind getting something that I could really sink my teeth into. My Daddy keeps on complaining when I bite him on the shoulder. I can't help it. My teeth are trying to bust out of my gums and it feels good when I can just rub and bite my teeth against some rubber or cloth covered fleshly limb.
Once, I bit my Daddy on the chest. He shouted in surprise and I guess, in much pain. He said I bit his man nipple and it stung like a blunt needle forced into a vein.
Ouch. That must have hurt.
Sorry Dad.
Well, that's about it. I have lots and lots of pictures to share. My Dad is very busy. I can tell by the mess on his desk. But it's nice also to know that he isn't bothered by the growing mound of paper on his desk surrounding his laptop. He's very game about playing train or choo choo with me. Mama spends about 100 hours a day just kissing my cheeks which she says looks like siopao. Whatever that is. I'm just a Cerelac kind of guy. And isn't Siopao made in China?
Watch out for that stuff. I overhead it in the news. Melamine in your milk is a drag.
my teeth were chattering. the water was cold. but i was a model student. the teacher's pet. i was floating! my first formal swimming lesson. my dad taught me how to float already and here was my chance to show off...
pictures coming. thanks to teachers pepper and angelo lozada for treating me to this swim class.
My mommy corrie (she's my lola -- my dad's mom), texted my Dad and said that she's going to throw a 'welcome to the family' kind of party for me.
I'm going to meet my Dad's relatives and titos and titas and I'll get to see my Ninang cherry and Sharon again. And my Lolo Ned too! My cousins -- matt, bam and bruce -- are going there too.
My Ninang Elaine and Ninong Rene went back to Singapore today but not before giving me some cool gifts. I like the Baby Einstein CD the most and the Maisy the Mouse pop up book (which I promptly tore apart. Sorry, I didn't know you were not supposed to and yaya did not stop me. Oh well...)
That's my Ninong Rene (in green) carrying me on our way to the Red Crab restaurant in Greenbelt last week Monday when they arrived from Singapore. I like my Ninong Rene. He hums to me while he carries me. I miss them already. :-(
I really don't care that I'm adopted because this adopted family of mine really, really loves me. (Sigh.) So you don't have to whisper to my Dad or Mom ("Is he the one you adopted?") because to me, being adopted is a badge of honor and love. When my Dad and Mom look at me when we're all cuddling in bed, I know that they love me like I was their own flesh and blood.
Well, that's it. I dont' mean to get all mushy. But that's life--my life--right now. Thank You God.
Today, my Dad woke up early (to my surprise since he's been down with colds the past few days) and brought me and yaya to the park -- and the market.
The Legaspi Village park was open today (I think it's a sunday today) and my Dad introduced what he said were 'fruits': a little hairy red thing (he called ram-boot-man), an orange blob he called 'papa-ya' (any relation to yaya?) and something else--I forget...
I almost walked in the park this morning too and worked up an appetite. So while my Dad shared some weird looking noodles he called so-tang-hon and sayboo lechon (hind anak--it's cebu) with my yaya I was drinking some really fresh and cool sugarcane juice. Aah.
Oh, and I saw two teeny weeny little dogs that I wanted to pet and hold...and bite but the owner said that the other little dog would bite me first.
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