A Peak At Maia's Day In School: Prayer Before Mealtime

Last October on her birthday, Maia treated her classmates to a pizza and spaghetti lunch. We ordered 5 boxes from the nearby Yellow Cab store and had the canteen pack them individual boxes of spaghetti. Based on our experience last year, not all of the kids are going to eat so we decided to just stick to pizza and spaghetti as requested by the birthday girl herself.

As kids are, they were pretty excited to share the simple meal after they greeted the birthday girl with a joyful Happy Birthday song but they had to play super cute first before they get to the table. 

So here's our little girl, leading the class in prayer before mealtime.

p.s. We would later find out that their class adviser would assign a prayer leader to lead the class in prayer every day. Our little girl seemed to be very good at that role, don't you think?

Timed Out

August 6th, around dinnertime

I really wish I remembered now or even just wrote a few words in this draft post to give me a clue of why I had this photo of you sitting in that corner serving your much deserved time out. But I do vividly remember though that when I told you I had to do it, you just nodded your head and proceeded to grab your chair. You gently positioned it in that corner and went on to sit till the time you need to serve was up. Your puppy eyes were pleading for me to forgive and yet you kept quite in that corner. You waited till I signaled it was okay to leave that corner.

"You sit there for 5 minutes." I had to say that firmly making sure I didn't choke or show any sign of amusement.

On times like these, you never argue with me now. You perfectly understand the rules in our house. You know that when you did something wrong, you need to be "punished". You hardly even cry anymore. Like in this photo. You didn't cry anymore. But I know you were really sorry. 

I often here you say you are now my big baby. Our big baby. I'm happy you still like to be called our baby. I hope you will never feel embarrassed if in case you're all grown up and we still call you Baby. Don't worry sweetie, it's not going to be that often but I hope when the moment hits us you would allow us to baby you that way we do right now. Because really, you will forever remain our baby. (forgive Mommy, I'm just extra sentimental today)

p.s. You might eventually be curious if time outs ever worked for you and might be surprised to know that they did work. Time outs gave us both the time to regroup and rethink our actions. On your part maybe it wasn't that way yet but almost always when we talk after your time outs, you seem to realize what your mistakes were and would acknowledge them by readily offering your heartfelt apologies. That is enough for me and your dad. I hope you will never outgrow that gift of genuine humility and courage to accept your mistakes because when you are older they would probably become one of the most difficult virtues to nurture and live by.

Milestone: Learning To Tie Laces

My plan for today involved only 2 things - a corner table and my office laptop. Due to the torrential rains that we've experienced for the past 3 days, the area where my company is situated was severely flooded and we were advised not to come to work anymore last Monday. Had it been any other week, I would have jumped in glee. Who wouldn't appreciate an extra day to spend with her family?

But it's the end of August (in our financial books) and a day or two missed translates to piles and piles of paperwork that I will have to catch up and make up for during the same week. And it just so happens 2 public holidays were set less than a week apart.The more that I gotta work extra hard (and maybe put in more hours).

Good thing I'm finally allowed to work from home these days so I only had to condition the kid that I cannot be disturbed for a few hours during the day because I needed to get some things done. Good thing, her school also declared that they are taking the entire week off so I had no reason to be implementing gadget-free school day rule. 

Just to be sure, I woke up extra early today so I'll have a few hours headstart before the kid regains full energy at breakfast. 

Being a working parent and actually bringing in work to the home sucks big time. But I guess, it helps if you poured extra efforts in her earlier years to train her to be independent. These days, apart from the non-stop craving for mommy and daddy's attention, the kid can pretty much do a lot of things on her own. And that includes feeding herself, dressing up, entertaining herself mostly through pretend plays (yes complete with a script and an imaginary playmate to boot). So the gadgets remain my last resort even during days like today.

She really can survive the day without me asking how she's doing but being at home and not doing my parenting duties always leaves me guilt-ridden. Luckily today, I finished work early and we still had the few hours of the day to bond. I wanted to do an art project but ditched it when I realized I was just too exhausted to gather materials to use. 

Then I remembered I'd been planning to try to teach her again how to tie laces. Last December, I attempted to teach her that but I guess she wasn't ready because she was losing patience every time the ribbons would jumble up. Well, she still has a lot to learn on being patient but when I took out the P20 pair of laces (mahal pa actually because I bought it from the supermarket) that I bought a few weeks back she was eager to be taught. 

I remember a book about tying shoelaces that I saw in NBS recently and thought I can maybe do something similar to it. At no cost. Of course the book came with a story but we're experts at that already, we can always make up new ones. We just need the props.

So I got a pair of scissors and a cereal box from my recyclables stash, traced the little kid's cute feet on it, cut two pairs of feet and punch 3 holes each on the sides. Viola! We now have 'shoes' that we can practice tying laces on.

She grew really impatient in her first 2 attempts. But I remained calm and assuring her it's an easy task to do. After 3 repeats, she grabbed the laces again and was able to make a loop and tied the laces tight! Yay! She seemed so proud of her achievement she gladly replayed the same to her dad and ate Inday.

Now...it's probably time for us to get rid of those velcro P.E. shoes and get her a pair of decent laced rubber shoes. Agree?

Throwback Thursday: Preschool Hunting

Dearest Maia,

I'm sad these past few days. I just found out I lost most of the photos of our recent Tagaytay get away. I hardly get attached to material things but to memories, oh I have extreme attachments. Pictures are my way of preserving memories. So when I lose those things, my heart breaks. I wanted to preserve these things for you to browse through when you're older.

But I am better now. I found a collage I made of you and Daddy from that day. At least, I have that.

And while I was frantically browsing through old photo files, I came across this. So apt to the day because in the Instagram world, Thursdays are known for throwbacks. And these are photos from last year when we were still preschool hunting. You took a preschool screening test here and you aced it. Especially the test for emotional readiness.

I don't think you were really mad here. You're just goofing around, I guess.
You're so cute!

Chubby cheeks!

famished after spending about an hour at the testing room

Looking at these photos made realize how so much can change in just a span of a year. You still look like a baby here. Now, you're all grown up. Just like a real kid. Some days, you even feel like an adult ever-ready to give mom and dad a piece of advice. You're very outspoken. And opinionated. Oh so much like mommy actually.

BUT. I hope you take your sweet time growing up, my little miss preschooler. Enjoy your childhood. Because I want you to have great memories of it when you are at my age already.

Love,

Mommy

Weekend # 46 - Dates, Reviewers and Handmade Things

If the silence in this blog isn't testament enough of how crazily busy this month has been (and will be as it seems), then I don't know how else to tell you. I couldn't even pause and pull my hair and scream even if I wanted to (pardon the rather violent tone). To flush the bad vibes out and just set the mood for the week, let me just recall the weekend that was. It was a mix of crazy (Saturday) and calm (Sunday) but if all my weekdays were like that, I'd be one happy mom!

Saturday was an exclusive Mom and Maia day as our coosome-twosome trooped to Makati Med to get the kid's immunizations up to date. We had to wait a little longer than usual for our turn but she didn't show any signs of restlessness. She really knows how to entertain herself now. I just make sure I have plenty of paper and pens with me and she will be fine. When our turn came, I could tell she was uncomfortable but was so brave she didn't even wince she took the shots on each of her shoulders. She even managed to throw a big grin at me while the doctor was massaging her arms. Even in our commute back, she never complained. She only asked me to grab lunch at KFC because she's already hungry but she never demanded for anything that would exhaust all my energy. She walked most of the way and she only slept (even if I knew she was already very drowsy from the shots) when we were already settle inside the shuttle service.

Sunday proved to me that doing something with my hands is one of the best and cheapest therapies in this world. I finally took my craft box out yesterday and started sewing my handmade ornaments again. Before I knew it, the kid and Ate Inday was already sitting beside me and grabbing cut-out felt fabrics as well.

The little miss wanted to sew to but she understood that a needle is something that is not safe for a 4-year old to handle yet so she contented herself with just handing over a couple of buttons to either me or her Ate Inday. Before we knew it, 2 hours have past and we managed to sew a total of 8 ornaments. How cool is that? Three heads (or 6 hands in that case) is definitely better than one, don't you think?

Can you guess which one was Ate Inday's and which ones were done by me?

Sunday turned out to be a (good!) slow day, I also was able to squeeze in some time to make reviewers for the little girl. Math and Language has been a struggle as of late so I wanted to focus on that for now. I didn't want to put too much pressure on the kid though so I am trying to find creative (but cheap) ways to encourage her to study and review (even for just a few minutes) during the weekends.

Fill in the missing number yan, di ba Mommy?

Matchy-matchy

How about you, how did your weekend go?

A Little Dose Of Saccharine To Brighten Your Day, Mommy!

Before I left for work this morning, kid handed me this bunch of weeds and said: "bring it with you to the office ha, Mommy? May vase ka ba doon? Kailangan kasi ilagay yan sa vase"

I finally understand why my husband was not gifted with sweetness. God was probably thinking it's not a swell idea surrounding me with too much saccharine. I wouldn't be too happy acquiring Diabetes anyways. So yes, an overly sweet daughter should be enough to cover for two. 

Hope you're having a wonderful week! We're halfway through with October. I still am cramming for the kid's class party (which is happening in 2 days) but again, I keep telling myself we're after the salo-salo (class get-together) so there's really no need for me to pressure myself. Sana nga. Sana nga. 

Run, Maia, Run!

You ran your first race yesterday. Did you have a blast? I honestly think you did even if you didn't run the entire course. Had you not gone bored the first hour that we have been waiting for gunstart, you would probably have not wasted half your energy warming up with your dad. That was a headstart of about 500 meters for you and in retrospect, 1km on itself does seem like a tough distance already. 

I was bent on achieving a milestone myself yesterday. Admittedly, stage mothering took second priority yesterday as I tried my best to prep myself up for my goal realization. I forgot to take photos of you. Documentation was the least of my priorities. I just wanted to get that sub-1 that I have long been wanting to achieve. You see, dad and I have decided to push through with our full marathon training. And we're supposed to take things seriously now. All things related to running that is. And to me that sub-1 matters a lot because that will somehow validate my claim that I AM READY. 

Several lessons were learned yesterday though, albeit rather painfully. One - I should never, ever aim for a PR when racing in a low-budgeted fun run aimed just for (yes pun intended) FUN because a lot of factors can get in the way and you most likely would start racing not on your optimal form. So really, it's a lost cause to begin with. Two - when you are encouraging your kid to think of pursuing a certain activity the best thing to do for you is just focus your energy on him/her. The mere fact that she took on your challenge should be enough for her to deserve your full attention. This was the part I really regretted the most. I should have looked after you myself.

But well, at least, I did manage to hold your hand at the first few meters. You kept pushing to get me and daddy to run alongside you despite our firm hesitation initially. We were really stubborn at first choosing to (unfairly) force you to gather up the guts to run without us amongst the company of kids majority of whom were double your size. I should have knelt to level with you and looked at the current environment from that perspective. I would have understood your overwhelming emotions then. 

Oh well good news for me as there's always a next time for things like this, my little miss. An opportunity for redemption is still very possible. And I am giving you my word now that the minute that comes, you can count that we'd be 100% present for you then. 

You are one brave, headstrong and determined little girl, Maia. I look forward to witnessing the many adventures that you will take on soon! And great job for reaching the finish line!

you always, always never fail to make my heart swell with pride.

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?

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

Enthusiastic Preschooler

Dearest Maia,

Your dad took 2 days off from work last week. You requested that he be there at the gates when you classes are done for the day but you also insisted that I go there so the three of us can come home together. But I can't do that for now. Daddy and I promised you we will do it one day. And hopefully soon!

Daddy was so happy to see how enthusiastic you were to go to school. We were initially envisioning a lot of struggles between you and Ate Inday when you prepare for school in the mornings. But one month past, that has never been the case. 

Ate Inday has been telling us that 15 minutes before your scheduled school service pick up time, you are usually already seated in front of our house umbrella in hand and happily awaiting the school service's arrival. We can only imagine how that looked like since we're usually gone by the time you get ready. But today, Daddy being on another 3-day (insert Mommy's inggit look) vacation leave personally witnessed how easy it was to prepare you for school. 

Last Tuesday, your school had to suspend classes because of the heavy rains and some flooding on other parts of the Metro. When daddy broke the news to you, you cried...no wailed. You insisted that he takes you instead. Because you don't want to miss school. And your friends. And your teachers. Daddy had to call me at work while trying so hard to stifle his laughter. You are too funny little girl. But the sight of you daddy says is also some kind of heartwarming. You make it all so worth our efforts and hard work.

Just keep the enthusiasm going little girl. Because I'm sure there will come a day you'll grow tired. But with enough enthusiasm to fuel you, I believe you will never stay tired for long!

Love always,
Mommy (and Daddy too!)

review weekend

made lines for her to trace but she made a puzzle out of it instead

Maia's Favorite: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

I like to read. As a kid, I learned to love reading because my parents surrounded us with books (albeit, historical books mostly). So I wanted to impart that to my little girl and I wanted to start by doing just what my parents did on us. Sadly, I would later realize I know nothing about kiddie books (i love To Kill A Mockingbird and thought it could be Maia's first real book but then again...maybe later when she actually learns to read). So one day, I went to a local bookstore to do my research. I skipped those that were on popular cartoon characters. I wanted the kid to love reading not because it was about a popular character. I wanted her to be attracted to reading because it was fun and interesting (and maybe because she's also learning but I wouldn't want to force that on her yet). 

As I entered the children's section, this entire row of interestingly illustrated books caught my fancy. They were Eric Carle books. I randomly picked a book to browse. Apart from liking how simple but appealing the stories were, I was really drawn to the illustrations. I then vowed to start hunting for his books on every Book Sale store that I'd visit since I don't think my wallet will every have the heart to spare for first hand books (unless they  go on uber-bagsak presyo prices). However, the opportunity to visit a Book Sale branch became a rare treat for me. One time while going through the Book Depository site, I chanced upon a small (tiny is probably a better fit) hardbound The Very Hungry Caterpillar that fit my budget (read: close to Booksale price). I immediately placed an order (hooray for free shipping) and eagerly anticipated it's arrival. The book took a long time to get to us (again, hooray for free shipping) but when it arrived I just knew (from the look on her face), it was love at first sight for our little miss reader.

Maia's precious The Very Hungry Caterpillar book(let)

So after the Puppy Dog, this particular book became a bedtime reading staple for us. Staple in the sense that just like the Puppy Dog book, I already memorized it page by page and could tell it even with my eyes closed. But of course, every story time I will still need to pretend like I was reading. I didn't realize that Maia also memorized it already. Story time have since become a rare bonding activity for us since I would usually come home to a sleeping little girl (explains why most of my stories are during mornings). So imagine my delight when I heard her telling this story to a caterpillar that we saw in our Calamansi tree this afternoon. 


Dearest Maia,
When you're older, I hope you enjoy viewing this video. Daddy and I were filled with pride while listening to you while you 'read' your favorite book today. Keep telling stories. Even if only a few are willing to listen. 

(posted this on facebook with this caption: We found a caterpillar and an empty cocoon while checking on the plants in the garden this morning. She rushed in to get her favorite Eric Carle book and went back outside. A few mins after, Tibs and I can hear her converse audibly in english only to realize she was actually reciting(describing) the book page per page from memory. I hurriedly went outside to capture her on video. she didn't seem to mind. she was too engrossed to even stop me from taking her video (she becomes extremely shy when we attempt to take videos of her in intimate moments like this)

Happy Father's Day, Daddy!

Thank you for always being present (with Mommy) in raising me even if it often calls for you to go out of your comfort zone. Thank you for being hands on with me. Thank you for trying your hardest to keep your temper down (one of these days, I will understand why this is very difficult for you to do and why that alone is something that I should be very grateful for already) while teaching me the basics of surviving this world. Someday, I know, I will fully understand all of that. For now, I thank you most especially for always making me laugh like there's no tomorrow. Thank you for always indulging my shallow childish whims (for instance) like letting me ride on your shoulders during our strolls even if they'd end up really sore (because I seemed to have grown heavy, right?) . I just want you to know Daddy that riding on your shoulders always make me feel like I rule the world! 

I love you very much. Paulit-ulit. Paulit-ulit. **big kiss**

p.s. Even if I hesitated earlier today to acknowledge that you still remain as my one and only prince, please know in my heart that you will always be my original prince.

She will probably forever remain a Daddy's girl.

Goodbye Long Locks!

With the goal of crossing one more to-do from our school-opening-preparations-list (whew) in mind, Maia and I trooped over to the nearest salon from our place yesterday to get her wild, curly hair neatly trimmed. At first, Tibs was hesitant and wanted me to do the cutting myself. But after failing for the last 2 attempts, he finally relented and agreed to have it done by a 'professional'. Having been blessed with a lot (and I mean lot) of hair since birth, a haircut is something that seemed compulsory for Maia even for at least once a year because it's really a big effort for us to keep it in place. The little girl isn't very fond of headbands or clippies or pony tails. So a haircut being a yearly requisite, you can very well say that she's no stranger to having scissors sliced through her locks. She only cried the first time. The rest of our hair salon trips were all pleasant experiences. 

First time's always a pain. 

Second time's fun!

Yesterday however was sort of a milestone for us because that was the first time she went to a grown up salon. The previous ones were all done in kiddie salons where she was kept preoccupied while sitting in little 'car' chairs. But she was fine with it. She although expressed her wish to retain her long hair because princesses have long hair (thank you for the stereotyping Disney!). I told her though that a shorter one would make her look really pretty and so she simply just complied to Mommy's wishes. The hairstylist thankfully turned out to be quite used to trimming little girl's locks. She moved fast and we were done after 10/15 minutes, I guess. Georgie and I kept the little girl amused so she kept still almost the entire time that she was on the chair. When the hairstylist was all done, she took a moment to admire her new look (yes like adults do) in the mirror. 

Sadly, the little girl refuses to have her picture taken with her new trim. She probably wants to keep some moment with her new look all to herself for now . Most of the curls have been trimmed off and what's left of it were just the waves but I'm sure she'll grow back the pretty curls soon. I just really wanted to chop them off for now because they've all become very dry and had mostly split ends. (makes me wonder, how do we prevent kids from having split ends anyways? esp kids with tangly, curly hair?)

Thank you for being such a good girl Maia! You're almost ready for school!

I was able to steal a back shot of her while she relished her reward from yesterday - an order of Jollibee spaghetti!

A Spaceship Ride To School

I seriously thought I was the only one excited for school opening in our household. When I was younger, June was my most awaited month of the year. I was more excited for June than for July (which is my birthday month). I looked forward to the smell of newly wrapped books and notebooks, to arranging newly bought school supplies in my bag (i have this secret love affair with school supplies and making tambay at National Bookstore is my idea of killing time), to neatly hanging my newly ironed school uniform (yes my siblings and I each took the responsibility of preparing our own school uniforms) and most of all I was just excited to touch base with friends again. I can only hope Maia takes after that zest I had for school when I was younger. (digress, digress, digress)

So anyway, as I've mentioned, I thought I was the only one excited for school but this morning Maia just proved to me how wrong I was. While I was preparing our breakfast, she took out her scratch papers and drew something for me and her dad to bring to work.While we were admiring the details on her drawings, she started telling us what's the story behind one of her drawings. She pointed to one of the stick figures and told me it's her daddy. Then she went to encase daddy's head. I thought she was trying to draw daddy's hat but I was amazed when she said it's daddy's spaceship suit because we are going to ride a spaceship to bring her to school. Then her next statement made me laugh: "Kasi ayaw ko sumakay sa van, Mommy kaya sa spaceship na lang"

You see, the poor little girl has motion sickness (she gets nauseous riding closed air-conditioned vehicles) so if she could get away with it she would always prefer open-windowed jeepneys over everything else. I guess that's the price we pay for being jeepney-loving, commuting parents ourselves. (On a side note, our pediatrician tells us that motion sickness is actually genetic. She attributes it being born with sensitive nerves in the ears - I'm guessing probably the same nerves causing vertigos? - and I already know who is the culprit -- ME! I've been a byahilo up until I was in my teens. She prescribed a homeopathic remedy called Cocculus Inducus for Maia but I have yet to find it since the 3 Healthy Options stores that I went to didn't have stocks on hand. In the meantime, the school service's solution to this is to open the windows when Maia rides the school service to school. Sigh, that's the only thing that's making me anxious in this new adventure)

Still, here's to exciting adventures ahead!

Arts-N-Crafts: Primp-Up-My-Rockies

When Maia was still a toddler, our house converted to a daycare during the afternoons. Maia had made friends with several village kids and they soon became regulars in our household. I never worried about my little girl's social interaction then because she was with a playgroup every day. Her inherently shy demeanor started to fade away as we began to notice that she's started warming up to other kids easily. I can also tell how influential this daily interaction with other kids was to improving her communication skills. She soon became really verbal. She looked forward to these play dates everyday but all that had to end abruptly when Ate Inday left. The kid had to quickly learn to be by herself and instead make imaginary friends to invite to her 'parties'. She coped well with the changes in her environment and we could tell that she finally was having fun on her own but we also know how she longed to be with real kids to play tag, fight over toys and have real conversations with. Now that Ate Inday's back (yes, she's back! yipee!), imagine her delight. It's been two weeks and our house has never been without a kid since! The daycare resumed operations! :)

Even on a weekend, we had a kid over.  So last Saturday while Shea (Maia's BFF) spent the morning with us, I took the opportunity to inject something creative into the kids' day by giving them painting duties. I took out some stones that I brought back from our Antique vacation last April and everyone got busy primping up their little rockies. Even Ate Inday joined in the fun!

Maia, Shea and Ate Inday's masterpieces

What You Will Need:

• Stones (flat ones are better)
• Poster/tempera paint
• Googly eyes/Buttons/Beads
• Tinsel decor I saved from a few Christmases ago
• Ribbons
• Glue
• Scissors
• Paint brush
• Used newspapers

How to do it:

1. Cover the area where you plan to do the activity with used newspapers, grab a stone and paint it with your favorite color.

2. Let it dry in the sun for a few minutes.

3. While you're waiting for your little rocks to dry, the kids can be occupied by free style painting. In our case, we just handed them some scratch papers and they painted away.

Check out Shea's artwork. Isn't that pretty?

This was a funny scene. While Maia was painting on her paper,
I think she suddenly recalled their wet-on-wet painting sessions at St Michael.
She started with "Over the meadow"...
long pause, then she goes "ano nga sunod nun Mommy?" (what comes after that again, Mommy?)
I had to stifle a laugh because I know Maia always gets self-conscious when she hears us laugh over her witty/funny remarks.

4. When the rockies dried up, they each took their stones and started decorating it till their heart's content.

little girl was so engrossed with primping up her rockie

5. Primped up rockies can be made into paperweights and even as storytelling characters. Just let your kid's imagination flow!

Maia and Shea enjoyed this activity. They even showed their masterpieces to Shea's mom when she came to pick Shea up. Next time when I have more kids over, I'll have more art activities ready so they'd always look forward to spending a day in our house (talk of bribery no?). That way, the little kid will stop pressuring me and her dad to buy babies at the palengke (marketplace). Works well for me (since I am on the win-win side here).

Are We Ready For School?

In two weeks (even less I suppose but I don't want to count the days yet), we will be officially starting school. Last weekend, we already bought the supplies on the list that Maia's school provided us. The minute I got hold of the list, I immediately wanted to cross all of them out. I didn't want to cram this time (but I know I still will no matter how hard I try not to because cramming runs thru my veins hahaha).

One reason that I wanted to get this list done and over with is because a recent exchange with other preschooler mommies (southern n@wies, actually) made me realize I am not even halfway done with shopping for Maia's school needs. The school supplies as it turns out is just one part of it. That realization actually sort of turned my panic button ON but since I don't have room for panic these days, I forcefully calmed myself down and started putting together my BACK TO SCHOOL LIST.

I also found this printable list online and it's something to start with. It divided the list into two: SUPPLIES and CLOTHING. For the supplies, I guess I'm pretty much done with ours. ESS listed the following:

• Folder
• Notebooks
• Manila paper
• Oslo paper
• Typewriting paper
• Bath Soap
• Toilet paper
• Cartolina
• Apron
• Poster paint
• Construction paper
• Glue
• Expandable envelope
• Sequins
• Colored glitters
• Eraser
• Pencil
• Crayons
• Hand sanitizer

I just added in a few more that I think we also need at home once school starts:

• stapler
• scissors
• ample supply of tape
• plastic to cover books (National bookstore has the pre-cut ones, they're more convenient)
• ruler
• paper clips
• fasteners

CLOTHING:

• uniforms
• socks
• leather school shoes
• rubber shoes
• jacket
• rain-gear = raincoat + rain-boots

ACCESSORIES:

• hairbrush
• ponytails and clippies
• hankies/face towels
• umbrella
• lunchbag
• small bag
• water bottles
• plastic containers for baon

Handing all of these over to Maia's teacher during the first day of school.

I also need to do another important list but that one I'm doing last because it's going to drain me down to the core and that list would be THE BAON LIST. So much list, so little time.

Do you have tips to share to first time preschooler mommies like me? Any list of your own that you would like to share? I'd really appreciate it if you would!

Stepping Into New Clothes, Starting A New Adventure

I was staring at these uniforms this morning and as most of my little kid's milestone were, I was overwhelmed by all kinds of emotions once again. 

You know when they were infants and feeding, you wished they'd start holding their feeding bottles so you can at least have a decent hour (or two if you get lucky) of sleep. And then when they were crawling, you'd wish they'd start walking so you won't have to stay by their side to keep them from constantly falling. And then when they start mumbling, you'd wish they'd start talking so they can finally tell you what they really want. 

You wished all that and the minute they happen, you start wishing they go back to being infants. Small, dependent little beings who would just coo or blow raspberries at you and then melt your heart without even realizing it. 

Oh I'm being emotional I know. And she's only starting preschool so yes, medyo OA. But it never always stops - that realization of how fast time flies and even if I've metamorphosed into a totally different being (not in my wildest dreams did I ever see myself to be such a cam-whore but I just had to freeze the moment somehow) from how I was say 6 years ago, I still sometimes feel that I didn't document enough. Truth be told, I suddenly realized (yes suddenly like just a few minutes ago) all this fuss about documenting every single milestone was probably all for me and never for Maia. Because I want to remember everything. Every single thing about this little adorable girl. 

My dear Maia, if I could stop time I would. But of course, that isn't going to be doing you any good so I will make the effort to stop wishing I could. I hope you find great joy in this new adventure of yours. As always, we are just here to support. And provide all the love that you need. With everything else in this upcoming journey, we shall go by your lead. 

We love you Maia! Have fun in school!

On Pets And A Boy Named Diego

I was supposed to be doing homework and catch up with my back log exercises for my class tomorrow but I'm still hung up from today's lazy activities that all I could think of was getting an early shut eye as soon as I'm done with this post. And that's probably what I'm really going to do. Oh yeah, tomorrow will take care of itself. What's important right now is I have a kid who I made to feel like a VIP today and who couldn't stop saying I love you, we rock till she was taken over by sleep. 

Before she drifted to lala-land, we said a short prayer and I was struck to hear her pray for Diego today. Diego was a name she chose for her baby brother, if ever we will be blessed with one. She asked me tonight what's taking Diego so long to arrive. But as always, I just tell her to be patient because Diego will come when it's time for him to come. (I am not even sure if the kid understands my explanation but she always just nods and affirms it with a YES, Mommy).

Honestly, we never expected for her to be asking for a sibling. And we were settled on having just one kid (especially after factoring in the economies of raising a child these days). But at the beginning of this year, Tibs and I just suddenly felt that emotional readiness for another kid. We decided we will try for another. We consulted with my doctors and got the go signal from all of them. They were even happy that we have decided to try again. But all that had to be put on hold because things have also started to get exciting and challenging for me at the work front and I wouldn't want to overwhelm myself so we're still waiting and waiting for the right moment to come. I'm positive it will. But I'm hoping our little miss can still stretch her patience. 

So while we wait for that right moment, we considered getting her a pet to keep her mind off from Diego (and to save us from the constant badgering as well). We sort of made a wrong move (parents are supposed to decide for kids her age, right?) and asked her what kind of pet she wanted. She initially demanded for a dog. We actually almost gave in to that but I got scared the last minute and decided to beg off my co-workers offer. Luckily, another co-worker was happy to take over ownership of the dog so that somehow took away the guilt. Then she moved on to rabbits. That one we had a hard time coming up with excuses. But we know for a fact that she definitely isn't ready for a dog, a cat, or even a rabbit.

BioResearch must have sensed our dilemma.
They gave us an immediate solution.

Fortunately, last April when we visited Lost Eden Educational Park in Sucat (separate post on this trip still on my drafts folder will link up as soon it's published) we were given free pet fishes (from BioResearch which is the park's affiliate) to take home. Tibs was hesitant to take them at first, but I thought the kid might take it as a replacement of the rabbits that she's been wishing for us to buy for her. She wouldn't give in at first but when I bought a fish bowl and showed her how she can help take care of the fishes, the rabbit wish was temporarily forgotten. Since then, she as soon as she wakes up she would go straight to the bowl to greet and feed her FISHIES (they are five and they're called - FISHY 1, FISHY 2, FISHY 3 and so on...). 

This afternoon, we had a wonderful discovery when we came to say hi to them FISHIES...the 5 have now almost doubled. We found 4 small FISHIES amongst those original FISHIES who have undeniably grown since we made them a new home 4 weeks ago. Tibs couldn't believe they multiply that fast but well, they're there. The little girl just kept saying - I'M HAPPY MOMMY! I'M HAPPY FOR THE LITTLE FISHIES. :))

that little spec of black in there is the newest member in the little girl's fish bowl.
sigh. i miss having a real camera.