Les Miserables: Not a Film Review

Last Sunday the hubby and I were able to watch Les Miserables. We left Miya with the grannies and went to the cinema. Before watching the movie I've watched all the videos on the official Youtube site of the movie. I also wiki-ed the book. But I was not prepared to see how miserable (duh?) their lives were. Even after going home, I was haunted by the movie. The next morning when I woke up my thought was I am grateful for being born into this life. I thanked God because I was fortunate to have been born into this life. I was not born poor, I was jot born during the war, I was not born to uncaring parents. Instead I was born into a loving family during a time when equality is almost achieved and there is no war in my part of the world. I did not experience extreme poverty and have not (yet) experienced tragedy in my life. I was a bit ashamed to have taken for granted that I am very very fortunate to have been norn in this lifetime, in this country and in this situation. I didn't have to work hard to escape poverty. I just have to work hard to remain afloat and to achieve a certain goal in my life. I am grateful that when I sleep all I really need to be happy are within my arm's reach. The movie reminded me to be grateful and contented with what I already have. Other blessings would be cherry on top.

Learning Lab

I finally enrolled Miya again in Gymboree. I was planning to enroll her in Music class again but when I found out Gymboree offers Learning Lab -  a preparatory class for pre-school, I immediately decided to enroll her on this one. You see, I want to enroll Miya in school already by June this year because she will be two and a half by then. But Joema was adamant that it’s still too early for her. In a way, this is a compromise since she still gets to school but not everyday only once a week.

Her first class was not a success, I must say. She kept on walking around the room and didn’t want to sit still to listen to her teacher. At the end of the class I asked her teacher if that’s okay. She said most kids are like that on the first day because they are not familiar with the surrounding. Although she said it might also be because Miya’s too young to participate in class and she has short attention span. She also noted that Miya seems to really want to learn and she participates when she wants to. She told me to try again the next week and we’ll see from there. When I enrolled Miya, this was also a concern I told the lady in charge. She also said the same thing that the teacher will evaluate if the child can continue with the classes or we should transfer her to another class – Music or Play or their other classes whichever I prefer.

Letter J for her first Learning Lab class

After the class, I taught Miya over and over again the things we learned that day. How to write letter J, the things she learned that starts with the letter J, the name of her teacher (Teacher Roof (Ruth) she says).

The next week, she was mostly seated all throughout the class (I think  this time there were 4 students). She only started getting bored when it was reading time. She started learning the routine after weeks of going to the class. We are now on our fifth week this coming Saturday. And I’m happy to say that she’s now more engaged in the class. She sings along now, she does what the teacher says, she answers when asked, she even eats the cookies during reading class.

The flow of the class goes like this: they sing hello to everyone and then Leap (frog who sings the alphabet song) is introduced to the kids. And then the teacher asks about the letter they studied the previous week and then a new letter is introduced and how it’s pronounced. Then the kids are taught how to write the letter and one by one they are asked to trace it on a big letter. The teacher then brings out different photos for the kids, each object in the photos start with the letter of the week. Afterwards, it was clay time where they use clay to trace the letter. 

Tracing the letter L with clay

Then coloring time where they are given a sheet of paper with the letter and some objects starting with the letter. 

She doesn't really know how to color the pictures yet so I just let her doodle with the color

After washing their hands, it’s reading time! Each kid is given cookies to eat while teacher reads them a book. After reading, it’s art time. This last activity is usually varied, they can glue papers to the letter or paint the letter but it always involves the letter of the week (of course). 

Using paint and  leaf (for letter L) to make art. I love her apron! 

Then it’s their goodbye song. After that, the kids line up to the teacher for their stamps. Miya always gets five stamps. She asks for stamps for her hands, her foot and her tummy hehehe. She's always so proud of her stamps especially the one in her tummy.

After class, it’s playtime...until the next Play class starts. 

She never gets tired of going over, under and through the different areas of the play gym

I plan to enroll her in Play class. I’m just trying to figure out if she can do two classes in a row. Because usually after LL and then playing for a bit in the play area, she falls asleep immediate when we get home or during the ride home. So I’m still undecided if we should enroll her in Play or Music class in conjunction with LL. Or we can wait for her LL class to end (I only enrolled her for 12 session) and enroll her in a different class. But I really think LL is good for her, to prepare her for school. We’ll see.

UPDATED: Here are photos of the classroom:

The kids are allowed to have one companion inside the room

Miya Daldal: Almost Two

Miya will be two in a week’s time. Last week I received this email from BabyCenter: “My Toddler This Week: 23 Months 3 Weeks”

Your toddler can probably hum and sing songs such as "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and make three-word sentences, like "Cup fall down." She can probably follow a two-part request, like "Come here and turn around so I can comb your hair." Many kids this age also have fun identifying opposites like "tall man, short man," or "big block, little block." But if your toddler isn't doing all these things, don't worry. Children learn to speak at different rates, and your child may still be working up to this stage. 

 All of these are check check check for her.

She can sing songs:

 “Twinkle, twinkle little star” – Titay titay little star

 “Itsy, Bitsy, Spider” – It-it-it-it

“Old Mcdonald” – ee-ay-ee-ay-yo

“Alphabet Song”

“Happy birthday” – Happy doyrtday to you

“Ako ay may lobo” – this one she loves singing when she’s playing with Talking Tom. And when she sings it, the part saying ang pera ko, pambili ng lobo, sa pagkain sana nabusog pa ako, she conveys the correct tone and emotion. It’s as if she’s really regretting buying the balloon LOL!

Make three word sentences. She speaks in Filipino. Although we try talking to her in English too (pero di ko keri na straight English hahaha!) so that she understands. Anyways, she says, “Ate heram phone (pahiram phone)” or “Ay yagyag (laglag) Miya” When she built this totempole with her toys, she exclaimed “Wow Mommy, hindi yagyag!”

She’s still bulol. Her letter b she pronounces as d.  Her r and l is sometimes pronounced y. One time she was asking me for money to put in her coinbank, she goes “mommy peya” so I corrected her “Pe-ra”, she said “Pe-ya” so I did it again, “Pe-ra” and she went “pe-ya.” And then I had to try again “Pe-ra”, she finally said, “noney (money).” Joema and I both laughed out loud hahaha!

When we’re inside the car, we seat at the passenger seat at the back. I think she learned from me on how to react when her dad drives. One time, Joema braked suddenly, and she went “Daddy, ingat please” hahahaha! And then last Saturday, Joema kept on changing lanes and she said, “Daddy likot naman.”

I’m amazed she now knows how to use BIG Filipino words like tingnan or muntik. I think those are big words for her. One time when she and her daddy were playing, she called me and said “Mommy tingnan mo ko.” Or this one time when we left the house and then her shoes fell off she said, “Ay muntik yagyag shoes.” Well, for "muntik" she needs to learn more of this word. When we ask her, "Bakit...." she knows to start her sentence with "Kasi...." although she doesn't quite get on what will follow next. For example we ask her "Bakit umiyak si Miya?" she then answers "Kasi....iyak Miya." Hehehe! 

She can follow a two-part request. Another big word she can use is "habang" for example, “Mommy kanta habang dede Miya” or "Mommy dasa book (basa ng book) habang dede Miya." It's sometimes not a request but a statement of fact haha so we always remind her to say please.

Here she is "reading":

She has fun identifying opposites. She doesn’t know much of the opposites but she recently mastered small and big. She points to her rubber duckies and goes “is-mol duck, big duck” or when we read “Guess How Much I love you”, she points to the rabbits and says “is-mol rabbit, big rabbit.”

Sometimes I can't still believe how big she is now. And that it was almost two years ago when she was still a baby who just cries and sleeps and feeds. Don't grow up too fast, Babe! 

Miya's First Dental Visit

On the Sunday, in between Christmas and New Year’s day we went to Megamall for the little gir’s first visit to the dentist. See she had a crack on one of her front teeth way way back. But just recently, the other had a crack too. You may have noticed it in some of her photos here in the blog. I got a little bit worried at how brittle her teeth was. She was only recently introduced to sweets haha. Well she had a lot of sweets during the holiday season so I was a bit alarmed. So we decided to bring her to the dentist.

We went to Little Ones at SM Megamall. We were supposed to go to Dr. Smile but when I called on our way there, the receptionist said that they were already fully booked and the next appointment time was at 6pm (I was calling around 11am). So I called Little Ones and was happily informed that they service on a first come first serve basis. Good!

We waited for a bit before Miya’s turn but there were a lot of toys in the clinic’s waiting area so she played for a little while. They also had a lot of books so I read her one when she got tired of playing with the toys. But she’s really so impatient that she got tired of reading too. Good thing it was her turn finally when she started getting a bit restless.

Playing while waiting for her turn

There were two lady dentists at that time. One of the dentists sat in front of me and asked me to hold Miya facing myself and then I’ll let her head rest on the dentist’s lap while Miya’s legs are wrapped around my waist (so that she won’t fall if she moves). MIya didn’t want to lie down so we had a hard time. The other dentist said that she might cry but that’s okay as long as they are able to see her teeth. Haay. She cried because we had to force her to lie down. This is even after we practiced her saying “aaah” to the dentist and showing her teeth at home. Good thing though is everything’s ah-okay. And the crack is just a crack. The dentist said it doesn’t seem to be because of cavity because it doesn’t hurt her (as I confirmed to her). And that she didn’t see a hole in either teeth. She told us to brush Miya’s teeth twice a day and that we can continue using Sansfluo as her toothpaste. We also bought Sansfluo teeth wipes from the clinic. She also said we can start bringing MIya for teeth cleaning every 6 months. I had to ask if we’ll do the same position when they clean Miya’s teeth. They said that I will sit down on the chair and Miya will sit on my lap if Miya doesn’t want to sit on her own. This is actually what I was hoping they would do when they checked Miya. But oh well, hopefully next time there will be no more tears. They said they will only do the same position as her head on the dentist’s lap if she won’t sit on my lap on the chair.

We paid P500 for the consultation and P150 for the teeth wipes. We were also told that we can dropby the clinic anytime we’re at the mall and have Miya sit at the dentist chair so that she can grow accustomed to it even if they don’t get to clean her teeth (no fee for the just-sitting-down).  

In the end, I’m happy everything’s fine with my baby’s teeth. Sadly she cried during her first visit but I’m pretty sure she’ll get over her fright on our next visit just like how she eventually got over her fright of Jollibee.

Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve

For Christmas Eve (as last year), we celebrated it at home just us three. Joema had work on Christmas Eve and he got home pretty late that we had just time for Christmas eve dinner and then went to mass. When we got home, we had Miya open her Christmas gifts.

We went to my parents's home to celebrate Christmas Day. Unfortunately, all our photos are still with my brother so I can't upload them here. 

For New Year’s, as I’ve mentioned we all got sick hahaha. But before that, Miya got to celebrate with her torotot.

And Lolo got her the biggest pizza he can find for Media Noche.

After writing this post, I realized we don't have decent photos of our Christmas 2012 and New Year 2013. Oh my! The truth is on Christmas Eve just after the mass, Joema and I had a petty fight. Good thing we were okay the next day. I hope our family photo in my brother's camera is worth keeping! What a sucky way to spend the holidays, right? Well, not really. True, they were not for the books but life's just like that. It was unfortunate that there were unfortunate events on those dates but everything was good. We were together as a family, we had a home where we were kept warm and safe and we gave and received gifts from our loved ones. 

Maybe next year we can go out of town for the holidays? I'm not sure. We're still creating our traditions as a family. Hopefully, next year will be more awesome! :) 

Back at Our Fave Place

22-23 December 2012

Because we were bitin in our Christmas party held a week before this, we did another round of partying. This time at our friend’s very nice rest house. We always tell them jokingly that we’re fortunate to be friends with them because we can go here for free hehehe. I joke that I’m grateful to Joema because he married me, or else I won’t be part of their group hahaha!

Promise hindi sadyang naka-violet kaming lahat

Pre-brithday treat of Joy courtesy of Mek

Rooftop!

This is how it will be like when we have two kids hehe

Videoke

David, Jo and Nickie were able to join us before they left for Singapore. Yay!

Miya and Baby L kissing. They loved kissing each other hahaha! Miya is very affectionate. She loves kissing people.

More photos of our second day after the jump...

New Header for the New Year

I got tired of the look of this blog. I knew I had to change something. I didn't like the other custom templates of Blogger so I decided to stick with this one and just change the photo of the header.

Et voila!

If someone is reading this, please don't get scared of our family photo hehehe. I chose one from our recent trip to Boracay to compliment the travel theme of template. I hope you like it.

Babies and Christmas

21 December 2012

We’ve been to several Christmas parties last December (and I’m pretty sure you have been too). And one of them was a party with some of friends at work. I’ve only known these girls for less than five years (some of them even for less than a year) but I’m grateful I have them in my life. Truly! I guess when you grow older, you treasure these kinds of relationship. I’m not an entirely friendly person actually haha, I’m no Ms Congeniality. If you ask some of them, you’ll know. I only keep a handful of friends and those different groups are tight-knit. Hehe sorry for the emo intro, it must be because I’m going to be another year older in a few weeks time.

Anyhoo, this party was a lot more funner because we were able to bring the kids. And what’s a more beautiful way to welcome another kiddo in the group by throwing the mommy a baby shower. So technically this is a baby shower and Christmas party in one hehe.

Here are the photos:

Miya with Tita Lynne and Tita Mads

Let's attack the food!

I was in charge of the games. Our games is baby shower themed instead of Christmas. One of the games is  called Back and Forth Birth Story. We formed a circle and  passed our gift to our left or right depending on the story (as I'm reading it). The story is about Mr. and Mrs. Wright who is about to give birth. We also did this in our Christmas merienda (although different story). 

The next game is called Delectable Diaper. The teams had to correctly identify the chocolates in the diaper. But we microwaved the chocolate bars and it looked like poo.

Dirty nappy anyone?

Mads trying to eat the poo chocolate off the nappy

Next up is Diaper Designer. The teams used tissue papers to create diapers for their babies.

Lynne as the baby looking like a sumo wrestler hehe

Of course they had to model it

Bottle Chugging is next. Used old bottles (but unused) that I have in stock and put orange juice in them.

Kampay!

The big winner! Tumatalikod pa sa camera para di makunan haha!

Next is "Spit the Binky" game. But since pacifiers are more expensive that teats, I bought teats that are packed in 4s instead. we had very limited budget for the games hahaha. My instructions to them were "Chupchupin ang chupon at ibuga" hahaha!

While the adults were playing, my little girl had some fun with the extra large teddy bear.

Since this was also a Christmas Party, we had our exchange gift.

We also gave a gift to the Mommy-to-be Tin (she has already given birth as of press time).

Class picture of course before we ended:

These two played while we cleaned up.

*Got all my games from Babycenter

Christmas Lunch and Merienda

17 December 2012

You really know it's December already when your calendar is packed with Christmas lunches left and right. And because we just don't have enough days for lunches with friends, we move them to merienda.

Christmas Lunch with breastfeeding mommies

It's so nice to see these familiar faces again. Most of them I don't see anymore in our Expression Room so this lunch was a welcome treat. One hour is not enough to talk to these women. We had a little exchange gift - bought gifts for our kids. Mommy Rocel got my Miya a gift. (Hello Rocel if you're reading this).

Christmas Merienda

Our little group had a little Christmas celebration of our own. We had simple merienda of Amber's spaghetti and peachy-peachy. I had them play some games (I was the designated game master) and we had a fun round of exchange gifts from our white elephants.

Annual Migs Christmas Party

16 December 2012

We were almost complete for this Christmas party. Michelle attended with her family (finally!) and David and his family also came home from Singapore. We missed Epoy, though, who didn't come home for the holidays.

Photobombing starts NOW:

Miya with her godsisters

Gift giving time. Miya loved giving gifts and receiving them as well.

We also celebrated EJ's birthday that night.

Wacky shot

We played one round of Cranium - boys vs girls. Of course, the girls won!

Our growing brood. Kulang pa ng two boys.

One lst family pic - almost all the kids are restless already.