4th Birthday Preps + Divi Finds

I have been planning to go to Divisoria for weeks now but most of our weekends have been packed I didn't know when to squeeze that in. Today (thankfully but sadly) our playdate with our Fun Farm tropa got postponed so I grabbed the opportunity and dragged the reluctant hubby to go hunting for giveaways at the bargain shopping capital of the Philippines in the hopes that I can finally cross this task out in my to-do list for the kid's upcoming birthday.

After the kid's first birthday, I immediately shelved the idea of ever throwing 'big', organized parties. I decided that from age 2 onwards we are going for intimate, backyard (or in our case - home garden) parties instead. I don't think the kid had any issues with that anyways. To her, what makes for an awesome birthday party are the cake, scoops of ice cream in cones and the presence of her neighborhood friends. 

However, since her school allows students to celebrate parties with the entire class, new expectations were set. She now expects a celebration in school. And a themed one just to add a little complication to what to me is already tasking to do. Party planning stresses me out. Although I would really love to see my kid happy, it isn't something I enjoy doing. But well, like most mothers, I do it anyway. 

I still aimed to keep it simple. Our menu would be baked macaroni and chicken lollipop, a small cake for 23 kids to share and a gallon of mango (it has to be yellow because that's her favorite color) ice cream and 2 dozen cones to complete the kid's wishes. She also asked for a fairy themed party and that was to be covered by the invitation. For the remaining part of the party, she would just have to content herself with what Mommy's invisible party planning skills (and with very limited budget to boot) were able to pull off. Again, I'm almost sure she wouldn't mind. 

Given my expected failure on the event itself, I thought maybe I could still claim some redemption by labouring over the party giveaways. As I've mentioned here, I was never fond of giving away sweets and pre-packaged Disney character school supply sets (no offense to those who do. my kid likes them so much and even begs for us to giveaway Tinkerbell pencil cases but this is more of me trying to teach my kid to be unattached to certain things). But I couldn't do away with the giveaways either because for one - I do not want to disappoint the kids. I thought I could still go far with a budget of P50/kid, I just need to find the right things to put in there. I don't know what those are but what I was very sure I wanted was for them to be reusable and earth-friendly if the budget permits. 

Since my initial plan of giving away plants is logistically impossible. I thought of giving away a garden kit instead. I thought of giving the kids packet of seeds to plant inside burlap sacks that I saw at the Party Starters Facebook page with would be really nice (and pretty). But when I browsed through the price list however, it sadly was way over my budget already. So I was left with what seemed to be my final option and that is to scour Tabora St at Divisoria instead. I thought it was going to be easy finding ready made burlap pouches there but I apparently thought wrong. The 2 shops that we found to be selling burlap cloth told us they were available but had to be ordered. I didn't have luxury of time to place the order and come back for the items so even if it broke my heart, I had to let the idea go. The pouch price was still steep for my budget anyways so I just took that as a sign. It wasn't meant to be.  

While we were walking and thinking, both the hubby and I paused and pointed at these: 

cute buri bags selling for P15-P18

Mini-bayongs for the kids! These will be great for role-playing too! 

So the hubby and I bought 2 dozens of these and headed back to Anding's where we found prospective loot bag fillers. We were eyeing educational, wooden puzzles to give to the kids. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough stocks for our first choice so we bought these instead:

not sure how earth-friendly these are but when I saw the shapes,
i thought the kids could learn from this

Anding's is a bargain toy haven. And thanks to Maqui for recommending we check this shop out. This saved us a lot of time since we are still amateurs at Divi shopping.

where to find Anding's

We also bought other wooden puzzles to give away to the kid's neighborhood friends who recently celebrated their birthdays. Feeling galante but really the toys weren't expensive at all so I didn't have issues getting approval from our boss chief (aka daddy, man of the house).

We spent about 2 hours walking around Tabora and Ilaya Sts. Had we left the house a little earlier, we would have had an extra hour to check out 168 but I also wanted to stick to my budget and buy what was just needed so I readily agreed when the hubby suggested we head home by 11:30. Fruits are cheap at this time of the month in divi and we were also able to score this pair of fairy wings for P90. This now completes the kid's costume for Halloween/trick or treat.

It has been one long tiring day for the hubby and me having spent more time traveling than shopping but still I'm glad I was able to achieve my goal for today. Kid excitedly packed each of the lootbags/giveways this afternoon and she's now even more looking forward to her birthday celebration in school. 

Penpals + Birthday Card Exchange Project

As a child, I loved writing letters and notes to friends and families. The letter exchanges especially grew when I stepped into high school. Most of my grade school friends have since moved to other schools and having entered the difficult age of puberty, the letter exchanges became venues for me and my friends to air out our crazy teen emotions. In college, when my dormmates left to stay in other dormitories or transfer to other cities to work we still kept in touch through letters. I still kept most of those although I would have to really dig deep into my childhood memorabilia in Antique find them. I used to re-read them when I come home for vacations. They always provided me with a doorway to revisit my teens and college years and well pretty much just send me down nostalgia lane (something that I am pretty addicted to). 

I enjoy opening up the mails and anticipating the stories those letters would bring. I love deciphering my friend's handwriting. Even the handwriting alone can convey what mood my friend's were in when they were writing the letters. I looked forward to those the most, I think. It was almost like I was there with my friends when the experiences that they were sharing actually happened.

Today however with all these techie (good stuff, I wouldn't argue with that) things surrounding us and our kids most especially, you'd wonder if they will ever get to know what an actual mail looks like. Or will they ever get to experience the excitement that comes with seeing the postman drop something on the mailbox or on your doorstep. Will they even know what real stamps look like? 

With that in mind, a fellow mommy blogger - Maqui - and I thought of reviving snail mails in our respective households. We thought of starting with a round of birthday card exchanges since both our kid's birthday fall on the same month anyway. Eventually we opened this idea up in N@W, a forum of moms that we are both members of and several  mommies showed interest in joining this activity. A few weeks ago, Maqui sent me and 2 other mommies a note telling us we can already start sending our cards. Last week, we received our first card and I don't have words to describe the delight on the kid's face when she saw her name on the envelope. "It's for me! See! It's my name!" 

She raved for days about getting this musical card from the mail. And it just made her look forward more to her birthday. Thank you Aki and Maqui! We look forward to exchanging more mails with you in the future! 

p.s. 

Maia had some sticker pals in the past. This reminds me that we are now way overdue on that. Time to collect them stickers again and send mail to our pals again! Shout out to Manilamommy's DW and Wifelysteps' Little Timmy!

Maia, The Storyteller

Maia at 46 months attempting to tell her own version of Cinderella. In English. Or gibberish.

Better figure it out for yourself (and share your translation if you ever understood. lol)

 

Whatever language it was, it still was fun to watch/listen to. Agree?

Marshmallow Igloo!

My preschooler was excitedly waiting by the door when I got home last night. She immediately handed this over to me when I got in. I almost blurted out a what-in-the-world is this but got hold of my tongue and managed to wait for the kid to reveal what it really was. 

"Mommy look teacher helped me build an igloo! 

Alam mo ba Mommy eskimos ang tumitira dyan! "

The other day the teacher wrote down on her diary to bring a small pack of white marshmallows to school. I didn't find a pack of all-whites in the supermarket so I had to send 3 small packs of brown and whites and made a note to the teacher to help her sort thru the pack. I guess her teacher didn't get my memo.  

I actually didn't have any idea they were going to turn those marshmallows into an igloo. But well, after taking time to really look at it, it does look like an Igloo. Just a rather dirty Igloo. It even has an opening for the Eskimo (see photo above). 

Albeit the mind-boggling (hahaha) first few seconds, I always relish those moments where the kid would proudly show me her school projects. It reminds me somehow that she likes to  be in school. And that there are things she enjoys doing in class. And with other kids. 

Baon And Sharing

assembled her baon kit - tuna sandwich and a few pieces of grapes

Kid proudly munched on a piece of lettuce leaf this morning. I didn't notice so she had to call my attention and point it out to me. Healthy ako mommy, kinain ko yung dahon!

Well, it wasn't easy convincing her to try it. I can only count with my 5 fingers those very few instances where Maia gave in to my request for her to share a plate of greens with me. She still remains a picky eater to this day. And she seems to be quite proud at being that judging from how she would always refuse the healthy things I'd offer to her. But some days, she still manages to let us feel that we matter to her by indulging our requests for her to eat the food on her plate.

This morning I offered her that leaf. I tried several times to trick her to eating it but she was adamant. So I just gave up and resolved to just try again some other day. But when I was assembling tuna sandwiches for our baon today, she probably got piqued at my sudden change of mood so being the attention-seeker that she is she just went ahead and munched on a leaf thinking probably that I'll shower her with praises after. But I missed that moment. Lucky me, it didn't seem to bother her at all. What mattered was she finished the leaf. 

After we've high-fived that moment, she went to surprise me even more. She asked that I pack her a sandwich to bring to school as well. "Please slice it into 4 parts, Mommy. I am going to share my sandwich with N and A at lunch later!" Did I hear that right? My normally self-centered kid finally wanting to share something with someone? (cue triumphant cheers in the background). 

Some 4 years ago, my mornings have changed from good to better. But there are days in between where they happen to be one of the BEST! Mornings like today makes my painfully early wake up calls all worth it. And it all started with just a piece of lettuce.

Unlearning

The ARC arrived yesterday. It was something that our household has been looking forward to since the kid started preschool. I wasn't home then so it was Ate Inday who broke the news to me. She got a 3. Three. Well to me three is good. It is enough. But to the daddy, it was a different thing. He somehow...expected excellence. I was surprised. But I thought better to discuss at home.

When I got home, the mood somehow shifted. The daddy was now cool about it and I ended up the worried one. Why, you might ask? I grew up in a household that never really demanded for the kids to turn in high grades. But still, we all ended up being rather competitive and yearning to be achievers. But I really tried hard not to nail my success on my grades and somehow when I got to college that attitude helped a lot. So yes, I aimed hard (and still aim to) to be a cool parent. So even if, admittedly good grades would make me feel better I vowed not to nail my kid's success on to that alone as well. BUT.

She got a 2 in self-confidence. And that was what bothered me. The last thing I wanted my kid to be assessed with is having low self-esteem. But yes, she is a very shy kid. And I've witness that several times over. And it broke my heart a little. That was the only thing I really wanted her to have -- enough confidence to equip her to survive the harsh realities of life. And yet, how ironic that she would end up being assessed to be weak at that. 

I have since given up reading on parenting. I have accepted the fact that no book can tell me how to perfectly raise my kid. Or how I can become a better parent. But that day drove me to seek Mr. Google's help once again. What I read appeased me somehow. So thank you for that Mr. Google. At my kid's age, that article said, the still do not have a strong understanding of personalities. It might even be true that they do not know what SHY really means. 

Our dearest little miss,

Please forgive us for feeling a teeny bit of disappointment today. We never meant to but we live in a society where success is dictated by numbers and somehow despite our earlier resolve not to fall into that trap, we still did. We will do better next time. We are all first timers at this after all. 

We want you to know that you will always remain the smartest and most confident for us. Because we know you better than anyone else. In your own time, little girl, you will shine. THAT WE GUARANTEE.

Love you always,
Mommy and Daddy

Linking up to a nice post on letting go and unlearning via bellalunatoys.com - WALDORF HOMESCHOOLING; LEARNING TO LET GO

Role-Playing and My Preschooler

For several weeks now I have been wracking my brain to find more creative ways of encouraging my kid to do homework. I feared that she is starting to feel some school fatigue this early into the school year and that thought just doesn't sit well with me. She is struggling I can see and I am running out of tricks real soon.

Although I am very well aware of the fact that my kid is really STILL a kid, I do not want to give up on her yet. After all, she did ask for this and I can tell that school still excites her most of the time. Apart of course from homework duties which (from my interpretation) she abhors because it takes away a chunk of her already limited play time hours (I have to say this wasn't because we do not allow her to play but mainly because she spends majority of her afternoon napping). So what I did was change the schedule of homework duties. Instead of the afternoons, we now do them in the mornings right before breakfast. So now she has the remaining of her afternoons dedicated to play time alone. And the schedule has definitely improved her perception towards home work and has also made me more involved since I can now make myself physically available for when she needed my help (we used to go over the homework thru the phone since I don't get home till around 8pm). So I'm happy with how that change turned out to be for the benefit of everyone. 

The change worked. But what was even better was the kid herself found a way to make homework duties more interesting. Last Friday (in great anticipation for the coming weekend I reckon), she started role-playing as a teacher with her stuffed toys as her student. When I got home, Ate Inday proudly reported that she was able to practice writing her name and other writing exercises on the board. She even taught her students the numbers 1-6. 

This weekend, she did 2 more sessions with her students. And by Sunday morning, they were done with lessons on number 0-10. She mimics her teacher well and by that I can tell how much she likes her teacher. Every time her students would come up front and do boardwork, she would say: OKAY CLASS, LET'S GIVE (ex. Georgie) 5 CLAPS! We'd all join in the cheer. She would squeal and giggle in delight in between claps. Fun, fun, fun play indeed! 

okay class, who wants to try writing the #10 on the board?

We're partly hoping that thru the help of this role-play she would also eventually become more active in participating in class recitations and individual board activities (that's one of the weaknesses that her class adviser pointed out in her first quarter ARC). 

Play indeed does wonders to everyone. And it has no boundaries. It has afforded us with a fun solution to our school issues and despite the reality that this could just be a temporary solution, I am already very grateful for that. This has also somehow validated for me the great significance of PLAY towards raising healthy, passionate, imaginative and creative kids.

Four After A Month

Dearest Maia,

It's exactly one month to go before we celebrate your birthday. You are turning 4 by then. Wow FOUR. Although it has been months already since you starting claiming to be four already. "Four na ako eh. Di na ako baby", I still feel light-headed when I think about it. Time flies by really, really, extra, super fast. By the way, you lifted that entire statement verbatim from the adults in the house of course. You are so good at doing that nowadays. Some days you would even mimic all our conversations, just to annoy us mostly. We would pretend to be annoyed of course. Then you'd get the last laugh, as always.

This year is going to be the first time that you will be celebrating your birthday in school. Of course, as early as June you already have been planning what your birthday celebration would be. You asked for a Tinkerbell theme. No, you have never seen a single Tinkerbell cartoon show. But you saw it in one of the Disney reviewers that Mommy Ninang gave you and you immediately declared yourself to be her biggest fan. So almost instantly, you scraped off the Mickey Mouse birthday cake that you have been asking me to get you since last year and replaced it with a Tinkerbell cake. I wanted to give in to your theme request. But of course, we needed the financier's approval and unfortunately, it was disapproved. But he agreed to meet with you halfway and gave us permission to do a Forest/Fairy themed one. 

And now I'm scouring my tiny brain for ideas and finding none at all. We'll probably go for the rainbow cake again this year. I love the homey-feel that it brought to your party last year. (It actually made me feel like I was the one who baked your cake when in fact I really have no inkling how to make one) Then I'll just look for fairy figurines to top it. 

What I worry more about is your class giveaway. I wanted that to be a treat for everyone. But I'm not fond of giving kids sweets and the usual art kit. I wanted your giveaway to be meaningful. Initially I thought to give your class potted plants (just like the plants you brought home after your gardening class at St Michael last summer). But Daddy doesn't think that's logistically possible since 1) how do we transport all 22 pots from our house to your school via public transportation? 2) where can we source those potted plants in the first place? I think his concerns were valid and that made me sadder. It somehow pressured me to think of something even more unique. And that's really hard. I wish we could both sit down and plan about it already. But of course I wouldn't want to enslave you with petty adult problems like this.

Mommy has always been a crammer anyway. So I'm putting all my cards in my cramming magic once again. Wish me luck, baby. As I really wouldn't want to disappoint you.

Love you forever,
Mommy

Nightmare

Location: My childhood home in Antique. It was long been demolished.

Scene: Maia puking her guts out and seeming to realize she might be saying her final goodbyes soon. I was spongebathing her like crazy. But I was surprisingly calm.

Maia: Mommy, gusto ko malamig na water. Uhaw na uhaw ako eh. Gusto ko yung cold ha. Hindi yung normal.

I thought, what the heck just give in to her request. She's not going to be around for long. So I go down and mid-way through the stairs, she shouts "Mommmyyyyyyy!" I race up again. But when I get to her, she forces a smile and tells me she's fine. "Isipin ko na lang Mommy, watercolor sila para di ako matakot no?" (referring to her scary thoughts)

So I went down again and finally got her cold water to drink. She immediately took a sip when I offered it to her. While I was holding her, I finally broke down. I asked her how will I manage without her. What if I miss her suddenly and would want to hug her.

She tells me it's okay Mommy. Just always bring with you a picture of me. And don't worry I'll always be around to watch over you.

Hagulgol na. Then I heard Tibs calling me. It turned out I was dreaming. I mean, having a nightmare. But it was so vivid. I immediately went to hug my little girl.

-----------------------
November 5, 2012

I decided to post this publicly now because Tibs had a similar nightmare last night. He didn't tell me the details claiming he cannot remember any of it. Only bits he says. But I have a feeling he doesn't want me to worry so he decided to withhold. And yet...I still worry. Why are we having dreams like these? 

Weekend Snaps #36

I live for the weekends. So does my family. (if you've come across this statement in this blog for what seems like a million times already, i apologize in advance. makulit lang. and i don't think i will ever get tired of it) In fact, it is THE WEEKEND that our household looks forward to when Monday comes knocking on the door. (Sweet, it is Friday already? Mommy, weekend na ba?)

Lately however most of our weekends have been packed. We hardly felt their presence for the longest time now. So this weekend was sort of our breather. Our recharge time of sorts. We had to leave for a birthday party Saturday afternoon but it was just within the 'vicinity' so it didn't take us away from the house the entire day. The daddy of the house opted to stay though because he missed the house that much. And we even had to skip grocery time because he couldn't drag himself out. But palengke time (read: the dirty wet market) was a non-negotiable for me because THAT was to be OUR time during the weekend. He had no choice but to accompany me else he suffers the consequence that is my wrath (hahaha). The rest of the weekend though was REALLY about the little miss. And YES she told me just about a million times (i lost count) how she loves for the weekend to stretch forever. Poor little thing. One day, anak, you'll realize too...nakakaumay din pag buong linggo ang itatagal ng weekend. 

So anyways, here's how our weekend went in photos (snaps posted mostly in instagram):

Saturday was Jollibee birthday party time. Kid was still extremely shy and chose to just stay with me in our table to doodle rather than join the kiddie games. Good thing she still allowed Ate Inday to drag her to join the photo ops with Jollibee so she had something to show her dad when we got home. Pictures/photos are still almost always our best shot at getting her to share to us how her day went.

Sabaw love on Sunday breakfast. I cooked a big pot of my favorite sabaw from my childhood - Pancit Molo. The little miss loved it! They asked me to make some again soon! And I most definitely will!

A neighbor dropped by to play with her and they enjoyed almost 2 hours of uninterrupted kiddie fun. Maia is at this age where playtime trumps everything else. When a neighbor comes by to play with her, she'd dropped whatever it is that she's doing (literally and figuratively) and invite her friend/s out to the garden. Good thing, she can already be left to play on her own. We just check on her from time to time to make sure she's not sunbathing at 10am (because she would hardly notice the stinging hot sun once she's engrossed with play so you have to remind her to transfer to a shadier part or else you risk having her sun-burnt). Sometimes she'd also get a little naughty and try to move her stuff unto the streets where it's unsafe so we watch out for that too. 

the sight of this made me go...Awwwwww!

We made a card for her dear cousin Gogol because she told us she misses him. While waiting for her to finish her drawing (which she insisted to do) I noticed she draws better with a fine point pen. (Insert bubble thought: Hmmm, maybe she's not really the marker kind. Have to get her more pens then). She doesn't confuse her letters anymore and this note was quite a lengthy one. I had to dictate each of the letters one by one but I was surprised her she was patient all throughout. She did quite well, don't you think? (it just had a messy signature because she insisted to write her full name hahaha).

Then after siesta, I took out these olive oil bottles that I have been saving for sometime now for a musical experiment (thinking i can already teach or rather expose her to various musical notes by hitting these bottles). But I forgot to consider that these are rather thick glass bottles and it seems that factors in too when you create musical bottles (what are these called anyways?) like this. So the notes turned out to be rather unpretty to the ears. But my efforts wasn't totally wasted because this became a medium for me to teach the kids about mixing colors. I only used 3 colors (primary colored food coloring) here to create this rainbow bottles. Kid did pay attention up until the green part. Then something else caught her attention and she left me. Well, at least I was partly successful. I will try to make it more interesting next time.

RAINBOW came down one afternoon.

How about you? How did your weekend go?

Arts-N-Crafts: Maia's Castle Of Shapes

I feel quite proud of this. It was a split-second idea that eventually came out to be a proud-moment project. 

It's review season once again as the second quarter of the school year comes to a close. Although the school does provide us with information maps and guides for review, I'd always still opt to make my own reviewers the way I deem the kid would learn the easiest. And to me the easiest way for my kid would be the most fun way possible. Math is a struggle. But we get by. Writing the numerals is a different issue but we also get by. I never thought she'd struggle with shapes but then stars and hearts become part of the lessons and that's where we started having problems. Identifying them is no problem at all (although she does get confused with rectangles referring to them as octagons most times, I don't know how that association came to be but I don't want to find out anymore). 

I've had this ink cartridge cardboard with me for almost 2 weeks now. The first time I saw it, I immediately thought it would be something we can use for the kid's art activities. When I brought it home, kid took it instantly and called it her castle. She's been bugging me to help her paint it and today I thought we'd finally get around to doing it. I promised her we'd do it in the afternoon after we've finished reviewing for one subject and she was fine with it. 

While waiting for the kid to wake up for her nap though, an idea struck me. I wanted to finish reviewing her this weekend and I thought why not incorporate the review with our arts and crafts time instead. So I took out some colored paper and prepared the other materials. I decided we'll build a Castle Of Shapes by filling it up with flags of different shapes.

What we used for this project were:

ink cartridge cardboard

paper tubes

colored paper

double sided tape

toothpicks

scissors

pencil

tape

How we did it:

I let the kid trace the shapes unto the colored paper first. Then I let her cut them. For the star and heart shapes, I had to do the cutting on the difficult corners since she started getting frustrated but for most of the shapes she had a whole lotta fun cutting them. 

After the shapes were cut, we put double sided tapes on them and stuck them unto toothpicks, sharp edge down. Then I had the kid stick the flags unto any part of the 'castle'. After the flags were done, I took a paper tube and I cut the other side of it to look like a tower. I stuck that unto the middle of the tower and tadah -- we're done. 

It was a fun, super easy activity to do and the kid proudly showed it to her village playmates. She had a blast quizzing them on the shapes and teaching them what they were actually called. 

I'd like for it to stay with us until the quarterly exams are over. But I'm really not banking a lot on that since I know how 'gentle' kids are with toys. I hope it serves it's purpose well though and help the kid out especially with her rectangle issues. 

On Motivation

The kid tested my patience again this morning. A quarter past the school year and I honestly thought we have already established some sort of rhythm with regards to doing homework and other school duties. I wasn't the type who like forcing things so I strategized on making homework sessions interesting instead. And it was. During the first 2 months, that is. Then Habagat came and there were weeks in August where the kid would only be in school for a day or two and be out of it the rest of the week. She felt the freedom of being able to play anytime she wanted. And that was it. 

Today, she told me she doesn't want to be in school anymore. I asked her thrice and she consistently said NO. WHAT AM I TO DO? I told myself I will be lenient when it came to school issues. That I would willingly pull her out of school when she comes to me complaining about how burdensome school work is. But three months into our venture into the world of pre-schooling, I realized that at a certain degree this experience is teaching our little girl about discipline, independence and communication in a way that I might not really be able to teach as a parent. Exposure to the outside world is an inevitable thing. And I deeply believe that her school can hone her to be a survivor. I had to keep her continuously motivated though. And that's where my dilemma lies. How do I tell if I was just doing enough or have been pushing too much already? In the past 3 months, I never had to push actually. I always came home to a completed homework which was always handed over to me for checking with great pride. 

But today I found myself in a difficult situation. I felt my fear of Maia getting tired of school was realized. I froze at the thought. But I'm glad I had my husband behind me. He helped bail me out of it by telling me to take a break and try again later. I did. And it worked. Thank God for supportive husbands and daddies like ours. So we were able to start anew with homework duties and finish it just in time. How we finished it was a different story altogether but what was important is we accomplished what was needed today. Tomorrow will take care of itself. Sigh.

Are you a preschooler parent? Have you ever found yourself in a similar situation as mine? Were you able to come to a win-win solution? I would greatly appreciate if you could share your experience.

To Be Young And Carefree

I couldn't stop staring at this photo of the little miss from our recent Fun Farm trip. I remember it was quite difficult for Dom from Studio 2716 to take this photo because the little girl refused pause even for just a brief moment to have her photo taken. She kept telling me to push harder instead because parang kinikiliti kasi ako, Mommy! Gusto ko dito sa kiliti swing! (insert seemingly endless unadulterated kiddie laughter)

Among the great pictures that the photographers took of us that day, this is one of my favorites. For me, this summed up the mood for that day. Fun. Child-like. No holds barred. Free. Happy.

you can almost hear her laugh just by looking at this photo, don't you agree?

Thank you, thank you to our very patient photographers! Sa uulitin for sure!

A Chat With The Class Adviser

Upon the kid's request, we came to pick her up from school yesterday. She was specific that morning - she wanted us BOTH (her dad and me) to be there and being the spoiling parents that we are, we indulged her request. We arrived about 30 minutes before dismissal time so I thought I might as well  grab the opportunity to talk to her class adviser. I reminded myself though not to go overboard as I did promise myself, when it comes to the kid's schooling I will not be the overzealous stage mama that I was before she became an official preschooler. My only goal by initiating this talk is just to find out how the little miss is coping in class with her being a first-time preschooler. I don't really intend to ask anything academics-related. At this point, that is really the least of my concerns. I really just wanted to confirm from her teacher herself if she is having fun in school. 

While we were waiting for dismissal time, I ran down in my mind all the possible question I could ask:

- How is she in class? (that general, but i'm sure we'll eventually have more details)
- Does she get along with her classmates?
- Is she easily understood when she's called to recite or when she needs something?
- Regarding Parent-Teacher conferences, are we really required to attend? Or are there really schedules for that?

And these are the answers I got from our brief interaction:

- How is she in class? (that general, but i'm sure we'll eventually have more details)/Does she get along with her classmates?/Is she easily understood when she's called to recite or when she needs something?

Maia is really shy. But she is very diligent with her seat works and can usually work on her own after the teacher has given general instructions. (The teacher tells me she would balk when asked for a kiss. I think Maia has yet to get really comfortable around adults) She gets along with her classmates well and even has some BFFs already. And if she needs something she does not hesitate to approach Ms. J despite the shyness so Ms. J tells me that should be fine. We are hoping she'd eventually overcome the shyness at the end of the school year and eventually get comfy with the sight of her teachers. She also recites and gives answers when asked.

- Regarding Parent-Teacher conferences, are we really required to attend? Or are there really schedules for that?
As how most of the school activities are communicated, PTCs will be also communicated in the same way which is via our kids' diaries. The will attach the ARC (automated report card) notice in it for the parents to countersign. And the teacher tells me they only request parents of those kids they think merits the highest attention (re: school work issues, learning problems). Although, even if a parent did not get a PTC notice but comes to the teacher with an issue that he/she would like to discuss they will also be entertained. 

Although the talk was short, it somehow gave me the assurance that my little girl is thriving and will be alright. It gave me some sense of peace knowing that the teacher knows her students and shows concern for each of them.