earth hour 2009 - we voted!

we started about 30 minutes late but just the same, we voted! and not just lights, we turned off all the electricity at home for an hour. as i said, we didn't start at 8:30, but we made sure it lasted for an hour.

so how do you make 3 kids (aged 8, 5, and 3) vote for mother earth?

after turning off the lights, i brought the kids into the bedroom and i started telling them about earth hour. i began by telling them the age of mother earth (which i found out now is wrong hahaha that's what happens when you don't do your homework). anyway, i tried to make them understand the age by making them count the number of zeros in it. then, i began explaining to them that mother earth is already too old and that she is already showing some signs of aging.

i also told them about mother earth's shield (ozone). since the boys love ultraman and super mario smash brawl, they understand very well the purpose of a shield. they know that though a shield can protect, it can still be broken if it gets too much blows. so, i told them that the shield protects us from the sun's heat and told them what happens if the shield gets "broken". i asked them how they feel during a very sunny day, and told them that it will be much much worst once the shield is broken. i told the kids why we are voting by turning off the electricity. i told them that mother earth is already very old and people are not making things easier for her. the burning of too much energy is a hard blow to the shield.

from the shield, we moved on to the melting glaciers. we talked of what the kids knew about the north pole, everything from the ice, to the cold, and santa claus! (though the melting glaciers may not be limited to the north pole, it's easier to explain the northpole to the kids because of santa). then, i told them that when the ice melts, it becomes water. lots and lots of water. to make them understand the impact of the melting ice, i made a circle with my two hands. first, i showed them how a regular circle looks, and pointed where the north pole would be. then i tilted my circle to the side. then explained to them where the water from the melted ice would go. with this, we talked about the story of noah and the ark which the kids have already learned from preschool. i told them that noah's flood can and will happen again if we are not careful and too bad 'coz noah is already dead. guess what gabie said we should do? call bob the builder! oh yes, we can hahaha

then, i explained to them that since all the water goes to one side, the other part of the earth runs out of water and dries up. that's where the soil dries up, then the trees dies, and then people run out of food to eat, and then, die of starvation.

after talking about everything that's happening to mother earth, i asked them what they think we should do in our own little way to help save her. and here's the list of what the kids came up with:

1. reduce aircon usage. instead of using the aircon every night, we'll try to use it only every other day for 1 month. it's a big sacrifice to the kids because they are so used to sleeping with the aircon on.

2. save water by turning off the tap when brushing their teeth.

3. don't play with water when taking a bath.

4. save paper! to me and hubby's delight, this is a suggestion from gabie. see, gabie loves papers too much. he likes to draw and write and cut. if uncontrolled, he can really waste a lot of paper. we've already hidden our paper supply in a place that he cannot reach and gives him only one paper a day.

5. instead of paper use a whiteboard or blackboard.

i think it was a fun, entertaining, and educational earth hour for us. for more details about earth hour 2009, visit http://www.earthhour.org/home/.

mother earth, you got five votes from my family in singapore!


^_^

happy birthday, gabie!

today is my baby gabie's birthday. to make this day special for him, i took some time off from work and made some cupcakes for him to share in school.

i had to finish the cupcakes this morning so by the time gabie's school started, i've just finished all the cuppies. and i literally have to rush off the door to get the cuppies in time for his recess. and because of all the rush, i forgot to take a picture of the cuppies :-( that's my first mistake of the day.

after passing the cupcakes to gabie's teacher, i decided to stay around the school and wait for gabie and mikee. the kids always like it whenever i come and fetch them from school because they know too well that it rarely happens.

while waiting, i had a chat with a granny (or auntie, as they are called here in singapore) who was also waiting for the class to finish. she never seemed to ran out of things to talk about. since i was raised to be courteous and didn't want to offend her by being curt, i had to talk to her for about two hours! the only break i had was when i bought a canned milo from the vending machine. that's when i did my second mistake.

when the school finished, just when mikee was about to come out, the aunty asked me to write down my handphone number. that's my third mistake. it was quite chaotic that time with all the kids coming out of the school. i was also looking out for gabie to make sure that the school bus would not take him.

so, what are my second and third mistake?

my second mistake is that after getting coins from my wallet, i didn't put the wallet back into my bag. i decided to just carry it on my hand.

third mistake. i should have just given the aunty a name card! what was i thinking writing down my number? darn! if i'd just tried to get a name card from my wallet, i would have realized earlier that my wallet was missing!!!

i only realized that my wallet was missing when we were already in the bus stop waiting for our bus. and by the time i went back to the school, it was already empty.

and that's how i lost my wallet. i'm not concerned about money because all i had in there was a ten dollar and 2 two dollar bills. i'm more worried about my id's and cards in the wallet. both mine and my husbands nric card (identification card) are there. do i have to mention credit cards and atm cards? anyway, hubby has already cancelled the credit card as soon as i told him i lost my wallet. i don't have money on my atm account, coz i don't keep money there, so that's fine. but the nric cards! aargh! because of this i'd have to take off from work again tomorrow to try and ask around gabie's school if anyone has seen my wallet. and if i don't get it back, i'd have to file a police report for the nric cards.

*_*

chocolate

yesterday morning, when miggy woke up, he had a fever. i'm not sure what happened to him. i don't think it could be viral 'coz if it was, then he would have passed it to one of us by now. and no one else was sick at home. and he never went out the house during the weekend.

anyway, he was sick in bed all day. i spent most of last night awake to monitor his condition. luckily, it's a public holiday yesterday and today so i could take care of him.

when he woke up this morning, he's still sick. he was nauseous and had to vomit a few times. it wasn't easy because he hadn't eaten anything yet so his stomach was empty.

i asked him what he wanted to eat for breakfast. but he didn't want anything because of the nausea. and he just want to go back to sleep.

so, i left him for a while and went to get a chocolate sandwich (a.k.a nutella-filled sandwich) for myself. when miggy saw me with the sandwich, i guess, he was tempted and asked for my sandwich. after finishing the sandwich, he asked for another one.

and lo! after his second sandwich, he suddenly got better. the fever was gone. the nausea was gone. he even left the bed to play with mikee and gabie. and he never got sick again throughout the day.

that's why now, i am wondering ... chocolates???


*_*

gab the builder

when gabie was about 2 years old, he was a big fan of bob the builder. on his 2nd birthday, the theme was, you guessed it, bob the builder. but i kind of tweaked it a bit and made it gab the builder. that was a fun party for him.

now, almost 2 years later, thomas and friends has already replaced bob the builder in his heart. but, i think gab the builder still fits gabie very well. he simply loves building/making bigger things out of small things. i'm impressed with his imagination and creativity.

let me tell you something about gabie. you see, he started talking only around mid of this year. he is almost four now. no. actually, he started talking about 2 years ago. but, he talked german :D nobody could ever understand a word he was saying. not even me. and it's not that he doesn't talk much. because he did. he talked a lot. but in german. that's when my friend told me about an old wives tale that says kids who started talking quite late are intelligent, if not geniuses. my friend had a cousin who started talking only when he was about 3 or 4 years old, who grew up almost like a nerd. so she sort of believes that tale. well, for me, it is what it is: an old wives tale.

though sometimes, that tale sort of creeps into my mind whenever i see the things that gabie creates or builds out of assorted things or toys.

oh, and puzzles! he is very good with puzzles. i bought him a box of puzzles consisting of about 5 to 8 different puzzles for kids. each puzzle consists of about 8 to 10 parts. even if all the parts of all those puzzles are mixed together, gabie amazes me by solving all the puzzles without any help!

i'm not expecting to have a genius son, don't get me wrong on that. but like any mother, i just can't help but feel happy and proud whenever i see my gabie do these amazing things.




^_^

Tagumpay (Victory) Part 2

continuation ...

i remember crying to my husband about this dyslexia thing. of course, as the mother, i can't accept this. but my husband would not hear about this. he insisted that my son is not dyslexic. he just needs extra help. and so, i gave him all the help i can give him. i know it was really tough for miggy and i was careful not to break his little soul. but it was tough for me too. i was trying to balance my career and my motherhood. around that time, my boss resigned so his responsibilities were transferred to me.

now, i haven't even talked about his mandarin classes. as i said, we are not chinese and none of us speaks a word of chinese. so, learning mandarin for miggy, i believe, was the toughest. i had to get a tutor to help him with his homework. he was even taken out of the mainstream mandarin classes to another class consisting of those students who just doesn't get mandarin. learning han yu pinyin was difficult. learning the chinese characters were the extreme! whenever miggy has a homework in mandarin, i would spend about 3 hours browsing every page of his 4 mandarin books looking for the chinese characters in his homework to get the han yu pinyin counterpart. once, i have the han yu pinyin, i will use the internet to translate it to english. tough. really.

but through miggy's hard work, i noticed he got better. he overcame his letter problems. i noticed he is quite good in math. his mandarin tutor said he is getting better. and i forgot about dyslexia. i thought, well, i just overreacted in the beginning.

then came september. again, i received a note from school. this time, i was informed that my son was just screened for dyslexia and, again, i have to attend a parents' orientation about the school's dyslexia program. just when i thought everything was already getting better!

for this, again, i cried. i told my husband maybe it's about time i quit my career and concentrate on my kids. i asked him, what use do i have for my career and the money i am earning if my kids are suffering? i felt guilty. i would always remember a friend who would always drop everything she's doing for weeks every time her son would have an exams. her life would stop just so she could help her son revise his lessons. and i kept thinking, i should do the same. i have to do the same.

but i also thought, my son can't be dyslexic! i mean, i know my son. dyslexics' memory is not good. miggy's memory is very good! sometimes, he surprises me with the things that he remembers. take him to a place once and he'd remember it. he'd hear a song once, and next thing i know, i'm hearing him sing it. so, he can't be dyslexic.

during the orientation, we were told that the kids were screened based on their teachers' feedbacks. they were the kids whom the teachers suspect could be dyslexic. but around that time, the results were not yet out. and we still have to wait for october for the results. we were told that by october, if my son is proven to be dyslexic, i would receive a note and another invitation to attend a full-blown parents orientation. and so we waited.

and waited. meanwhile, i continued guiding miggy with his studies. i got him an exercise book for math. i bought books that are interesting for his age like spiderwick, beastly business, etc. i also regularly brought him to the library to further increase his interest in books.

october passed and i didn't receive anything. my husband and i were both anxious about the results. i even called up the school to ask about about it. but i was told to just wait for their note. and so, we waited again.

then, november came. and i received a note. finally!

but it wasn't what i was expecting. the note said that i am invited to attend the school's prize-giving day because my son will be receiving the best in progress award! omg! to be honest, i wasn't sure at first of what award he's really getting. i thought maybe it's most friendly or something like that. today, i told a friend that miggy received an award in school, and her reaction was, "what did he get? is it the most friendly student award?" so, i do have reason to think that maybe that's what he was getting because miggy is known to be very friendly.

but when my husband talked to miggy's teacher and it was confirmed that indeed he is getting the best in progress award, i had a big sigh of relief. it was as if a very big thorn was removed from within me. this award is not merely an achievement for miggy. no. this award is a symbol of his success. miggy has triumphed against every challenge he faced this year. he has proven that he is not dyslexic. and he has proven that he is what i thought he is.

in miggy's own words, "finally, all the hard work has paid off!" and that is victory indeed!

^_^

LITRATONG PINOY: Tagumpay (Victory)

for this week's litratong pinoy theme, i will have to re-post about miggy's award in school. i know it's becoming quite redundant now and i maybe sounding like a broken record. but this week's theme is victory/success and let me share to you why this is victory for miggy and me. first, let me warn you that this could be a long one.

when the schoolyear began, miggy got sick on the second day of the schoolyear and was absent for about 3 days. on the day that he came back, his class was given an assessment test for which, miggy was definitely not prepared. when he came home, he was very sad because he was thinking that he might have failed the test. he said, he was asked to spell some words, including ball. and he was not able to spell most of it, including ball :( he was also asked to write the number words, which unfortunately, around that time, he didn't know yet.

the following week, i received a note from school informing me that as a result of the assessment test, my son was placed in the school's learning support program (lsp) and i was invited to attend the parents' orientation about this program. during the orientation, i learned that the kids in lsp are, basically, kids who are academically behind their peers. these are the kids who needs extra help to learn how to read, write, and count. and he's the only one in his class.

when i was in elementary school, the kids who needed extra help are those who are really, really (to put it gently) slow. so, i was really pissed during the orientation. in my mind, there were so many questions. what kind of assessment did they give to the kids? who do they think they are to tell me that my son needed extra support? and the most pressing one is, how can they evaluate my son based only on one assessment test? one assessment test! and one that he took after being down with a flu.

after the orientation, i started giving miggy extra lessons as well aside from the extra help he is getting from lsp. of course, i didn't want anyone to tell me that i am an irresponsible mother for not teaching my son. i have to do my bit, and i am well aware of that. so, i did. and that's when i noticed something about miggy. aside from not being too familiar with the alphabets, he also had trouble with the letters b, d, p, q, n, and m. he would always interchange b and d, p and q, and, m and n. it was really frustrating at first because although he was already beginning to read, he would always make mistakes with these letters. and his short attention span was not helping at all. i have to admit that at times, i would really lose my cool because of this. miggy was under pressure. i was under pressure, too!

learning about dyslexia didn't help as well. in my attempt to find a solution to miggy's issue with his letter problems, i read about dyslexia. and it made me more worried about him. before this, i thought that the problem was simply his lack of attention. but then, according to my research, one of the symptoms of dyslexia is the interchangeing of the letters b and d, p and q, and, m and n. bingo! that's miggy's problem. also, according to some websites, some dyslexic kids are very unorganized. omg! that's my miggy. he is so unorganized that he always loses his things. often times, he'll go to school with about 5 freshly sharpened pencils and 2 erasers. then he'd come home with none. i cannot even remember how many pencils and erasers he has misplaced in school. i've lost count.

to be continued ...

****

sa mga ka-lp ko, pasensya na po kung indi ko na ma-tagalog ito dahil sobra pong haba. bawi po ako sa susunod na linggo. maligayang lp!


^_^

an invitation: annual prize-giving day

i have some grammar issues here ... what do you call an award for someone who made the most progress, say, in a given schoolyear? is it best progress or best in progress? i remember when i was in elementary and high school, awards were given for the student who's best in science, best in mathematics, best in english, etc. so, should it be best in progress? it sure sounds wrong to me. but, best progress also doesn't sound right. anyway, whether its best progress or best in progress, it doesn't matter. what matters is that miggy is getting this award in school! yey! well, at least, that's what he said :)



when i came home today, miggy gave me an invitation from school for the annual prize-giving day to be held on friday morning. according to him, he'll get an award for best progress. well, the invitation did not mention which award he is getting. but, miggy did say that, today, his teacher read to his class the top ten students of the year. and no, he is not in the list. but also according to him, his teacher mentioned that he made the best progress in class. so, he thinks that this is the award that he is getting. so, we're not really sure which award he'll get. i even think that there is a possibility that he might get the mister congeniality or most friendly award, if they do give such awards, because he is very friendly and even knows kids from other classes :D

anyway, whatever award he'll get, i'm still so happy and so proud of him. he did work very hard this year to improve himself. he started out in primary school not knowing how to read when his peers were already reading early-reader books. he knew only how to copy and write numbers when his peers were already doing sums and writing number words. but now, he is leaving primary 1 as a book lover, reading books from harry potter to spiderman comic books to true singapore ghost stories. and do i have to mention he scored 90% for his maths exams? so, if he is getting the best progress award, he truly deserve it. as miggy himself puts it, "all my hard work finally paid off!"

now, the invitation states that due to space constraints, only one guest is invited per recipient. my hubby is free to attend it and it is a bit late notice for me to apply for leave this friday. but miggy wants me to be the one to see him get this reward. i suppose it's because he acknowledges that it was our joint efforts (miggy and me) that led to this award. so, he really wants me to get this award with him. sweet. i'm so touched. luckily, the parental benefits of singapore were just ammended and i have an additional 1 day child care leave for this year. i'm sure i can work out something to take this leave on friday :)

you might have noticed that i haven't posted here since last thursday. i haven't even done last week's photohunt and litratong pinoy. that's because so many things happened last week and i was quite disoriented. but not until i received this news from miggy. so, i crawled out of my niche today just to post this great news.

^_^

examinations are over

finally, miggy's exams are over! he had his last mandarin exams last wednesday.

he has seen his test results for maths and english. but the teacher didn't let him bring home the papers. well, that's fine. at least now, we all know how he did in the exams.

he scored 80% on his english paper. he is not too happy about it because somebody did get 100%. but he's proud to say that he didn't get the lowest score because he saw somebody get 36% hahaha

for maths, he got 90% which i think is a really high score. according to him, somebody did get 100% for maths as well. and he kept on saying that he did check his work twice before submitting his papers to the teacher so he's wondering why he still got 7 incorrect answers. but hey, 90% is excellent for me!

all we're waiting for now are the results of his mandarin exams. he had 4 different exams for mandarin and we're hoping that he pass them at the least. mandarin is his problem subject because we're not chinese and non of us understands a word of chinese. it's so difficult to learn this language so i don't really expect him to get very high grades on it.

now that the exams are over, miggy is happy to be back to his old ways of playing and playing and playing all day long. at least for the time being, he don't have to study and work on maths problems most of the day. we'll let him play all he want for now. he deserves it.


^_^

good news

j here's an update about miggy. his cast was already removed last wednesday. thank god! though he is still limping a bit. according to him it doesn't hurt anymore when he walks, but it does when he moves around. hmmm i wonder what he means. anyway, we have an open appointment with the children's hospital so we can take him back when necessary.

j i'll be on leave this coming week!!! yippeeee!!! finally, i'd be able to spend a lot of time with the kids. i can also help miggy with his revisions for the exams next week. and, i'd be watching gabie on his first ever performance in his school's graduation concert on friday.

j i'm thinking of bringing the kids to the beach this monday. hmmm we'll see.


^_^

i'm princess!

don’t be fooled by this photo of mikee. she may look like an angel; but, trust me, she is one feisty little angel! i think if you look longer at this photo, you'd see what i mean.

from when she was only a few months old, i can already tell that she has a very strong personality. i’m sure that my friends who knew me very well, would say that she took after me. well, i guess they are partly right. but, if i have a strong personality, hers is five times more!!!

being an only daughter (i waited four years for her), i fondly call her princess. don’t get me wrong; i don’t spoil her in any way. i’m sure a lot of mommies out there call their little girls princess.

and she loves it! she loves being called a princess and would often announce that “mikee is princess!” she even teases her brothers about this with her monologue …

mikee, princess!
gab-gab and kuya, no princess!
coz, you’re boy …
i’m girl … i’m princess!!!

and guess what she wants to be this coming halloween?

*_*