Sunday, January 09, 2011

Visiting Joyce and her new baby

Joyce, who has been one of my closest friends since high school, gave birth to a healthy baby boy the day before Christmas. The gang was planning to visit her sometime between Christmas and New Year but as it turned out, she stayed in Bulacan for about a week after she left the hospital. When I called her up, she told me that we can all just meet up when she is back in Manila in the first week of January. Anna was still in town so we decided to visit Joyce and her baby in the middle of the week after work to make sure we were all there (or at least, those of us in Asia – Lia is in the US). Iona, JP, and Aya headed straight to Joyce’s place while Anna and Mitch hitched a ride with me. Anna wanted to hit two birds with one stone so she also invited our other high school batchmate, Norman, so she could catch up with him before she left for SG.

I gave Joyce my combined gift (birthday, Christmas, and baby shower): a whole stack of baby diapers which she told me she needed most. Joyce already had a whole cabinet full of infant diapers so a couple of our other friends who have a lot of experience with kids suggested that I get the next smallest size since the baby would grow to the next size by the time Joyce’s went through her entire stock of infant diapers. It was our delayed Christmas party as well so I gave JP and Aya their gifts. I didn’t get one for Iona yet since she asked for a belt and I couldn’t really find a good one.

We had pizza and pasta delivered from Brooklyn Pizza. A couple of other folks from high school, Gerald and Jon, also joined us. Joyce still had chocolate cake from Conti’s so we had that for dessert. We stayed for a couple of hours, catching up and hearing Joyce’s stories about how life is with a new baby. Unfortunately, it was a weeknight and people had to get up early the next day so we had to call it a night by around 10pm. Nevertheless, it was still good to see everyone, especially now that there was a new addition to the gang.

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