PHOTOHUNT: metal

last week, i learned from miggy that the lady cleaner of our building gave mikee a hello kitty tin box and a small stuffed duck toy. i thought, wow she's really nice to give mikee those things.

then, i learned that my mom won't let mikee touch those things. my mom said that, yes, this lady is very fond of mikee. but she is concerned that those stuff may not be clean. I mean they are clean, but not clean, as in clean. my mom was concerned that maybe those stuff were thrown away by the other tenants in our building and that the lady could have taken it and reserved it form mikee. at first, i thought, that may not be true. how can anyone give a little child something that she just picked from the rubbish bin, right?

then, i saw the tin box ...

it's really cute and if i am a little girl, i would love to have it, too. well, actually, even if i am no longer a little girl, i may still use it for work on casual fridays hahaha. but, i kind of agree with my mom now. it is very obvious that the tin box is pre-loved. the lid is a bit bent and difficult to open. and there are also some pentel pen markings on the lid.

but i feel guilty towards the lady who gave it to mikee. it was really nice of her to give those things to mikee. but what should i do?

if you're in this situation, would you let mikee use it or not?


*_*

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!


^_^

my little fashionista

it's already past midnight and my little mikee is still awake. i told her to go to sleep but she said she can't because her sunglasses are missing.

oh yes, you read it right. my little girl can't go to sleep without her sunglasses. she loves her sunglasses so much she'd wear it all day. and she doesn't really wear it to cover her eyes. oh no. she wears it just like a headband.

as my hubby puts it, it seems we have a little fashionista :)

^_^

best in progress

i haven't posted on this blog because of these.

and because of these, i am a bit late in posting about miggy's award in school. anyway, as i mentioned in a previous post, miggy received an award in school. he was given the best in progress award.

i was so proud of him as he was walking on the stage. as i've written before, academics is very tough here in singapore. so for a student to receive an award is definitely an achievement.

here's the trophy that he received ...

and here's our prize for him ...



as early as now, we've already made a deal that next year, he should get the bigger trophies or at least the best in maths award :) his prize? i promised to take him to hk disneyland. but all he wants is a trip to enchanted kingdom hahaha


^_^