From Dawn Till Dusk

Instilling the love for reading is probably one of the greatest gifts we parents can ever give our kids. When we train them to read at such a young age, they will use reading as a way to make adjustment and for gaining clearer insights into the world around them.

This week in Nico’s school, they are celebrating the Reading and Literacy Week.  Part of the week-long activities is a book fair where several publishers of children’s books are participating, including my most-fave publishers of all—Scholastic. Friday last week that I learned about the fair, I was so excited because the books I’ve been really meaning to buy Nico (probably via authorize.net), are mostly on sale at the fair!  Imagine, shopping for books from as cheap as P20 up to P200 as the most expensive? That’s great steal!

So come Wednesday afternoon,  during the snack break of Nico,  we trooped the little fair and brought home several mini story books of interest, most of which Nico personally choose. Continue Reading »

I was jumping in joy at one night Nico drank his glass of milk straight without any sign of resistance.  I thought I can already say: Thank goodness, finally! Not too fast. I think I spoke too soon.  That was just one of those very rare days the Little Boy does that.

He simply is testing my patience, making the drinking of milk from a glass an ordeal.  Hay, susme! My acne breakouts are increasing by the day just convincing him to drink from a glass. And I told myself, this can’t be happening forever, or I’ll give up.  I was kinda desperate and even considered getting back to the bottle. What silly idea! But that’s because I’ve tried anything and every trick there is to make the drinking session a little harmonious but I haven’t had any luck yet.  Until one fine weekend, my Little Boy was watching his fave shows on Nick, I saw this advertisement where it was shown the kids are enjoying their milk with the use of a special straw—the Sippah straw, the fun way to drink milk!

I stored in mind what it looked like and promised myself I’ll go look for it when we do the groceries.  And I was successful in finding the product. It was located in the racks near the growing milk products. To my excitement, I didn’t looked at the nutritional facts, and gave it a go.  I bought a couple of boxes, (the chocolate flavored one) and immediately by the minute we’re home, I tried it with Nico.  And the result: Continue Reading »

Foreword: I have been longing to publish this a long time ago, but didn’t have enough of courage to do so. This post has been sitting in my drafts for a month or two, I think. But each day that I revise, the more I become hesitant. I thought that it’s best that I blog about this later. “Saka na lang when Nico’s really well”, that’s what I thought. But a very recent post of Noemi about her daughter M moved me so much that finally, I decided that this post has to make it in my Blog really soon. Thus, this post.

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Once upon a time the life of a Mom, you dream for your child. Perhaps any Mom out there would agree with me in saying that the moment we conceive our children, we started hoping and dreaming for them—that they’ll grew up into being someone we envision them to be.

But how does a Mother continue to dream for her child when she is faced with a daunting dilemma? A tight spot, an impasse, a worst fear that you knew is coming all along, but caught you still unprepared when reality hits you at a time expected. And when this happens, how do you cope? Me, I stopped dreaming. But only for a while… Continue Reading »

One of those not-in-the-mood to pose for the camera of the Father and Son.  Taken during an afternoon Sunday stroll at Bonifacio High Street yesterday (we still managed to drop by after checking kitchen faucets at MC Home Depot, also at Bonifacio Global City), Father and Son just posed whatever crazy facial expressions they thought of.

The two boys’ current most fave pose nowadays is the pa-pogi pose, which dominated most of the photos I took yesterday.  They thought I’d stop taking pictures by giving me their grins and craziest looks in front of the cam?  Nope. Not at all.  I didn’t mind at all they aren’t in their happiest moods, so long as I captured memories, pretty fine with me.

Continue Reading »

You know the saying: some great things happens just like that and yet they are unplanned?  I guess, I believe it now.

A treasured Blog friend and I have been planning to meet for the longest time since she arrived in Pinas last February.  The first was when she went to Manila for planning session, we planned to see one another. Sadly though, it didn’t happen because just minutes that we’re about to see (I was already nearing the meeting place an hour earlier and she was on her way too), my fone went low-to-no-batt and there was no way for her to contact me. 

Second time we planned to meet again, my family was on Holy Week vacation somewhere in Zambales.  But because she told me during our one of our YM conversations that she maybe going to a relative in Laguna with her Mom, I hesitated calling her na for a meetup since it was Lent season. Not known to me, her plan to spend the Holy Week in Laguna didn’t push through, so both of us regretted not texting each other during those days.

For the third time, again, we planned to meetup during the recent three-day weekend.  But we weren’t able to see again since Hubby had to meet a client in Manila on a Saturday afternoon so our supposed Subic vacation didn’t push through.

And then, early morning today, I got a text message from her.  Continue Reading »

Mitch, as always, passed to me a “quite unique” Blogger badge here.  It’s called the Kick Ass Blogger Award.

What exactly is a Kick Ass Blogger? The originator of the Tag says, A Kiss Ass Blogger is someone like:

Maybe they’ve got incredible, original content. Or they’re overflowing with creativity. Is it someone that helps you become a better blogger? Or a bloggy friend you know you can count on? Or maybe it’s someone who simply inspires you to be a better person… or someone else who sends you to the floor, laughing your ass off.  Whatever the reason may be, I’m sure you know at least a couple of bloggers that kick ass. Well… why not tell ‘em so?

Well, as for me, who else shall I think of? No one else but my Mommy Blogger friends––Cookie, Cess, Chats, Lynn, Rach, Teacher Julie, Wenchie and of course, Mitch. You definitely Kiss Ass, Mommies.  And oh boy, if only I choose to gift each one of you, I’ll definitely think of something sexy, like bustiers! So you can continue kick ass even with your Hubbies.

I was originally searching for St. Martin villa rentals, when clicks of the mouse led me to a very thought-provoking article by by Brenda-Marie Hoffman. I so agree with everything she said. Parents definitely have a direct effect on the esteem of children who look to parents for their self-confidence development. And there are certain things which they should never hear us tell them! Here’s why…

All of us know that children are quite impressionable. For this reason, they are in need of a certain amount of praise and appreciation from us so that they can grow into emotionally healthy adults.

When your child makes a B+ on their homework, do you find yourself asking them, “Why didn’t you make an A?” While some of us may find ourselves making this mistake, I hope that we truly realize that it is a mistake. I am sure that we would much rather see an A, but we must never fail to realize what a great job the B+ truly is! We must also tell our children just how great a job that B+ is. We might even go so far as to display our child’s accomplishment by hanging it upon the refrigerator just to show them how very proud we are of them.

If we take the other stance, choosing to punish or look down upon our child for not having received an A instead of a B+ this may cause the child to starting thinking poorly of themselves. This may cause feelings such as, “I am not too smart.” Or the child may even begin to think, “I am just not good enough to make a higher grade.” Once either of these statements enters into a child’s mind, their quest for knowledge will become stale which will lead them to no longer care what grade they make in school.

This is just one small example of how our words can do either a lot of good, or a lot of damage. It is our choice how we choose to use our words. Will we choose to use our words to build our children up? Or will we use them to tear our children down?

Since we as parents truly want our children to be happy and to have a positive self-image, then we really must stop to monitor every word that comes out of our mouth when we are talking to our children. Specifically, there are five key phrases that we must never say unto our children. Continue Reading »