Chiq Boutique » parenting

Starting Kindergarten

Chiqui — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 11:35:07 +0000

My daughter seems to be well-adjusted now. A month ago, she didn’t want to go to school. When we were out shopping for uniforms, she refused to try the ones I had picked out for her. She whined that she misses her bestfriend, Catalina. She wanted to stay in preschool with her friends and her beloved teacher, Ms. Ana. No amount of explanation could ease her anxiety.

I started to worry. I had thought that adjusting to kindergarten would be a breeze for her. Afterall, she’s used to the school setting. She’s comfortable with other kids. She’s mastered her alphabet, colors, and shapes. She can count up to 100, write her name, spell and recognize some words. I didn’t understand why, just a few days before the start of classes, she acted skittish whenever I mentioned anything related to kindergarten.

So I hunted all over the house for a book that I had bought two years ago. I didn’t think she’d need it anymore after I saw how excellent she was doing in preschool. How could I have forgotten that it is but natural for anybody to feel anxious whenever there’s a big change coming up? New place. New faces. New routines. I should have prepared her emotionally.

I called her to come sit beside me on the couch. Together we examined “The Night Before Kindergarten” by Julie Durrell and Natasha Wing. I read it aloud. Hmmmm. It rhymed and sounded like the poem “Twas the Night Before Christmas”. That’s a plus. My daughter is a little Dr. Seuss, fond of creating rhyming gibberish. With the help of the book I assured her that, in some ways, kindergarten is just like preschool. I pointed at the pictures that showed what they might do and what she may see in the classroom. What caught her attention the most was the line “visions of school supplies danced in their heads”. One by one she identified them on the page. I seized that spark of interest and declared that we should start gathering the coolest stuff we could find for school. She ran to her pencil holder and pulled out some pink pencils. We sharpened them up until their tips felt like bee stings against our skin. She picked out a pineapple eraser from her eraser collection. She agonized over whether she should get her dad to buy her the sparkly pink backpack or the Disney Princesses one. The princesses won. We went on a trip to the dollar store to get her a pencil box. I kept reminding her that the small box will not hold all her crayons, markers, pencils, and colored pencils. While rummaging through the kitchen cabinets, she explained that she needed to pack some snacks for recess. After she found some crackers, she positioned her backpack the by door, just like in the book, all set for the first day of school.

How to Irritate Your Husband (Tip #3)

Chiqui — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 09:02:58 +0000

Tell your kids that they can be whoever they want to be when they grow up. This tip is especially effective if your husband is the traditional kind, the type who wants his children to go into prestige professions. My husband , who works at a hospital, dreams that one day he will hear the hospital paging system summon his son by announcing: Paging Dr. Baylon, you are needed at the emergency room.

Children, 12 years old and below, have the zaniest notions of what they want to be in the future. I should know. When I was six, I wanted to wear an apron and be a maid. At ten, I wanted to fix my country and be the president of the Philippines. Though I never showed a musical aptitude, there was a time I told my mother I wanted to be an opera singer.

My son seems to have ambitions that are quite unique, too. When he was six, he was crazy about dinosaurs and wanted to be a paleontologist. In second grade, we read about endangered rhinos. He was so touched by the book that he wanted to save rhinos from extinction. That was his nature conservationist stage. His grandfather told him he would have to live in the wilds of Africa, where there are no bathrooms. He would have to go pee and poo among tall grasses, where lions could be lurking. Shortly thereafter, he thought that snipers were cool, that perhaps the military was the best place for him. “OK, but you have to practise eating fast from now on because they don’t have leisurely meals during training”, I suggested. Then his Indian friend read his fortune, told him that he was going to own a restaurant someday. After thinking long and hard about the revelation, he concluded that she was probably right. He loves to make sandwiches so he decided that he was going to have a sandwich shop.

One day, when we were all gathered at the dinner table, my husband went into his “my-child-is-going-to-be-a-doctor-someday” mode. The boy told him he didn’t want to be a doctor. Hubby explained how the surgeons, in the hospital where he works, drive the most expensive cars and earn the most money and respect. His voice took on a dreamy quality as he started saying,”Paging Dr. Baylon, you are needed at the emergency room.” His reverie was broken by his son’s loud and obstinate declaration: “No, I’m going to make sandwiches!” Explosion ensued. “I don’t work three jobs just so you can make sandwiches at Subway!”, the father answered.

I kept a straight face, but I was laughing on the inside. “Maybe your son wants to be a chef. He could study at Le Cordon Bleu. That’s a prestigious culinary school”, I tried to placate my husband. That seemed to calm him down. In his mind he was probably imagining his son as the next Anthony Bourdain or Andrew Zimmern. He loves watching their shows on TV. “Mom, I don’t want to do fancy cooking, like the ones they have on TV. I just want to cook the way they do in small restaurants in the Philippines”, explained my son. “Carinderia cooking? Is that what you mean?”, I asked. He nodded. I turned to my husband and said,”Dad, remember your suking carinderia in Bacolod? What was the name of that place? Burangos Eatery? Arrange for your son to be an apprentice there and we won’t have to spend for college education.” Unable to comprehend why his son would rather saute GOT (garlic, onions, and tomatoes) than heal the sick and get the chance to drive a Mercedes SL, the father turned his attention to his food.

When he had finished eating, his mood was more cheerful. He smiled at our four-year-old daughter who was finishing off her plate. If the son doesn’t want to be a doctor, there’s still hope in the little one. “She’s gonna be a doctor someday”, he said brightly. Again, his voice took on that dreamy quality as he delivered his usual line: Paging Dr. Baylon, you are needed at the emergency room.

“No, I wanna be a mermaid”, came her vehement objection.

My poor husband uttered a not-so-very-nice word in Hiligaynon and shook his head in defeat. Two points for me.

Tuesday at Barnsdall

Chiqui — Wed, 26 May 2010 20:29:16 +0000

Tuesday of last week was not a very good day for me. The usual motherhood drama had gotten me simmering like a pot of toxic brew. I was ready to erupt at any moment. When I was done with my errands at the Hollywood/Vermont area, I dropped by Barnsdall Park. Stayed there for a couple of hours, hoping to let out some steam. There weren’t a lot of people there: just a man reading the paper, a jogger with a very loud ipod, a couple fussing over a little boy, and a white-haired old man stretched out under a purple tree. Very nice.

I dragged a metal chair to a sunny spot on the lawn and had lunch.

A bottle of root beer and 3 french macarons, which I had bought at the nearby Figaro Bakery and Cafe. Diabetes Delite!

When I had devoured my sweet treats, I walked around. It was pleasantly peaceful on a weekday. And look! There were scrap metal sculptures all around. I breathed all these in. Maybe the art might somehow seep into my subconscious and refine my boorish soul.

That’s the Hollyhock House, designed by a famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. The Barnsdall Park area used to belong to an oil heiress. She donated it to the city government, who turned it into a park. That picture above is not a very pretty one. It was a cloudy day and most of my pictures looked awful.

Hey, look! A beautiful flower. I like this better than the building. I wonder what it’s called….

Barnsdall Park is on top of a lone hill in the middle of busy city streets, sandwiched between Sunset Blvd. to the south and Hollywood Blvd. to the north. It is small, but very pretty. You have to go up a long flight of steps to reach it. The hillside is planted with rows of young olive trees. I’d like to be here in five to ten years and see how the mature trees would change the look of the place. Up there you get a good view of the Griffith Observatory, the Hollywood sign, and the City of LA. I took this picture around 2:45 PM. I was hurrying down the steps like Cinderella. It was time to go and pick up the kids from school. The air was filled with loud and shrill bird songs. Hummingbirds! I knew the sound . They were fluttering and singing among the olive trees. I had to stop and look around. I love the color of hummingbirds.

I was not so lucky so I consoled myself with these flowering weeds. They looked cheerful and delightful.

Picked up some not-so-dandy dandelions. My daughter goes crazy over them. I sat down for a while, taking more than twenty shots of these lowly flowers. Then it occurred to me. How silly I must look, sprawled on the hillside photographing some weeds from many different angles with my camera phone. I went LOL at myself. I know these pictures wouldn’t make it on the pages of National Geographic, but I went home with a spring in my step and a smile on my face. I felt my life force lighting up by several bars. Bring it on, kids! I’m ready for another day of the usual motherhood drama.

Mother. Job Description No. 398

Chiqui — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:46:56 +0000

“You eat this”, commanded my daughter as she thrust the red velvet cupcake into my hands. I had bought it for her at the donut shop just across her school. When I picked her up, she looked like she was about to burst into tears. The dam broke when I asked her if she was okey. She answered with loud sobs and a flood of tears. Turned out she hit a boy and her teacher reprimanded her. After making her promise not to do it again, I took her to the donut place. That cheered her up.

I looked at the cupcake with a frown. All the red and pink sprinkles were licked off the white icing. “I wouldn’t have bought this if I knew you were not going to eat all of it. It’s never good to waste your food. You eat it,” I lectured. “But you have to,” she insisted. “Why do I have to?,” I argued. She shrugged ,”because you have to”.

And so I ate it. First time I tasted red velvet cupcake. Not bad.

Mother. Job Description No. 398: devourer of her children’s unfinished food

At that very moment an image of my maternal grandmother flashed in my mind. Lola Tarcing, whose legs were cut off due to diabetes, spent her lifetime finishing off her children and grandchildren’s leftover softdrinks and snacks. When my cousins and I were younger, we’d would go into her bakery and open up bottles of Coke, Pepsi, Seven-up, and Mirinda. We’d take a few swigs and leave them unfinished on top of her display shelves. If she had placed them in a cooler, maybe we would have consumed them to the last drop. My lola, who worked so hard to achieve a comfortable life, detested wasteful behaviour. She never scolded us. Simply finished off our leftovers. Strange… all that sugary stuff and she was never sweet. Must have been the diabetes making her irritable as she grew older and sicker. She thought it was sinful to waste food. Everytime we ate at her house she never failed to tell us that good fortune will be offended and will fly out of our homes if we leave even just a single grain of rice on our plates. OMG. Seems like, if I’m not careful, I’m headed down the path she took.

Hurricane Athena

Chiqui — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 10:13:28 +0000

Aftermath of Hurricane Athena

The cloying citrus scent assaulted my nostrils and shook me out of my drug-induced drowsiness. Like a ferocious dog, it chased away the side effects of the two 25 mg meclizine, anti-dizziness, tablets I had taken earlier that day. Scrambling out of bed in panic, I called out for my children. They came running in. I looked them up and down and they seemed to be OK. No cuts, bruises, and broken bones. Nothing was burning. Good. I must have been dead to the world for two hours. I saw empty cereal bowls on the table. My son informed me that he already fed his sister. I smiled gratefully and ruffled his hair. Still I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Then I saw the mess.

Athena, my three-year-old daughter, had given her Sleeping Beauty Barbie a makeover. Toilet paper was strewn all over the floor. On a small table in their bedroom was my comb, a pair of scissors, and some strands of blond hair. There was my son’s cologne, Johnson’s Citrus Scent. Empty. My eskinol-type facial cleanser was there,too. Not a drop was left inside. And my newly bought Oil of Olay Total Effects. Third one she’s wasted. Sleeping Beauty Barbie was as slick as a greased pig. My beautician wannabe daughter had slathered my facial cream all over her doll’s hair and clothes then pumped out the rest into her cup. See the milky liquid inside a pink cup with handles on both sides? See the pink bendy straw inside the cup? I suspected that the baby cologne and the facial cleanser were also squirted into that cup. O, how she loves to squirt things. What exactly was she planning to do with the cosmetic cocktail that she had mixed? Scary thought.

I shook my head and started picking things up. Athena hovered around with an anxious look on her face, expecting me to give her another of my lectures. Nothing. I just kept shaking my head. I need to hide my things better. This was one time when I couldn’t say anything. I felt defeated.

My Pet Inchworms

Chiqui — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:58:52 +0000

Smoovie posing on a newly planted camote stalk, executing the classic inchworm move, they form a loop with the middle part of their bodies because that portion doesn’t have legs

Slow refused to budge from this alogbate leaf on the day of our pictorials, she was lethargic, I noticed the silky white threads on the opposite ends of her body, I asked myself ”Is she getting ready to hibernate in a cocoon?” , the little black things under the leaf are inchworm poop, it’s black and well-formed when they eat camote leaves, green and wet when they eat alogbate, they prefer a camote diet

Inchworms are like spiders, Slow is busy spinning silky white threads around herself, how perceptive of me, by the end of the day she had totally enclosed herself in a cocoon (see picture below), so that was why she was very sluggish, she was getting ready for the big change

Something was eating up the leaves of my Camote(sweet potato) plant. I didn’t like it. So I started turning over each leaf. And what did I find? Not one, but three inchworms snacking away happily. Eeeiow! I backed away in fright, but when I started getting used to seeing them, I had a bright idea. Why not put them in a clear plastic container so my kids can observe them? That was how I came to have three pet inchworms. I even gave them names: Slow and Fast. The last one I found was named Smoovie. My son asked me how I know which is which. I don’t actually. I just call them by the name I feel like saying at the moment. This super inquisitive son asked me again how I know if a worm is a he or a she. I’m not a biologist so I just designate their gender on a whim. At first I thought they were going to turn into butterflies, but later learned that these garden pests are going to turn into moths and breed more garden pests. My enthusiasm waned. Do moths also serve as “Hope for the Flowers” just like the butterflies? Remember the story? Should I terminate them? How cold is that! Matapos kong pagsawaan ang kanilang cuteness, itatapon ko sila na parang basura!

Happy Birthday Rupert!

Chiqui — Thu, 21 May 2009 17:53:43 +0000

see the similarity?

My son just turned nine this week. This post is a tribute to him because he has specifically asked me to feature him in my website. Why not? Though he fills my days with stressful battles over meals, homeworks, intellectual and religious discussions, sibling relationship, computer use, and many other things, I really am very proud of this little boy.

What makes him special? I asked him that question months ago. He answered without thinking, “I am special because I can cook rice.” Knowing that my son appreciates the skill that I taught him drove my happiness level to the roof. He must have been listening to my conversation with another mother at a children’s party. You know how moms are. They like to brag about their children. This particular mom was going on and on about how her son and her two daughters are so smart. They get high grades and play the violin. “Infact”, she added, “they have played at the Walt Disney Music Hall”. I was genuinely impressed. My son’s accomplishments were more modest by comparison. I told her how he was “Student of the Month” at Frank Del Olmo Elementary School and how ecstatic I was because I never expected it. Then I told her that he already knows how to “tig-ang” or cook rice at eight years old. Her mouth dropped open in shock. She was visibly impressed. “Sobra ka man imo. Ang bata ko gani nga mas magulang indi pa kabalo.“, she slapped my shoulder in disbelief. “Well, I plan to teach him how to clean fish when he turns nine. I have psychologically prepared him for that developmental task”, I continued. Now that he is nine, I have a fishscaler ready for him. I will give it to him today. He can look at it and touch it for a week. Enough time for him to absorb the idea that his mom is serious about teaching him how to clean fish.

LIST OF RUPERT’S ACHIEVEMENTS FOR THE YEAR

1. Yellow belt in Taekwondo

2.Student of the Month

3. He will take a test to qualify for the gifted program in his school

4.He joined the choir

5. He joined the Adventurers Club

6. He knows how to float and hold his breath in the pool

7. He knows how to cook rice

8. He makes his own sandwhich when he is hungry

9. Graduated from shoes with velcro straps to shoes with laces

10. He has his own blog

11. He read the scriptures in front of the whole church congregation without mumbling the words

12. Tried soccer and basketball

13. Overcame fear of Basti, Tita Lisa’s tiny dog

Mama, Do You Love Me?

Chiqui — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 07:15:25 +0000

My eight-year-old son loves this book. He told me so. He’s asked me to read it to him so many times. It’s a board book and usually board books are meant to be read to preschool kids. But I really bought this with him in mind.

I thought it would be a useful parenting tool. My son, like all children I suppose, is always testing the limits of my patience. We clash during mealtimes and homework time. Everyday. Most of the time I snap, raise my voice and nag. When I do, I feel bad. He looks like a wounded animal and I feel like a big bully. Everytime I lose my calm, I have a hard time changing back into a loving parent. To mend things between us I would make it a point to read this book to him at bedtime. It helps me reassure him that no matter what he does and no matter how I react, I will always love him.

A Mother’s Big Helper

Chiqui — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:09:39 +0000

Several days ago I called up my sister to congratulate her on her first baby. I found myself dispensing unsolicited advice. I’m sure I must have sounded like some fountain of wisdom on all things baby. (Mental Note: I must curb my teaching tendancies.)

I asked her if she was already breastfeeding. She explained that Naya (that’s the name of my new niece) was always asleep so she hasn’t started yet. Then she added that maybe the infant was always full because the nurses were feeding her at the nursery. It became clear to me that my sister has not thoroughly read the book that I had passed on to her: Breastfeeding Made Simple by Nancy Mohrbacher and Kathy Kendall-Tackett.

When I gave birth to my first child, I wasn’t able to breastfeed. My son grew up with asthma. He was always on antibiotics for upper respiratory tract infections. On my second pregnancy I was determined not to fail again. I took classes, searched the internet for info, and combed bookstores for good reference books on the subject. The one and only book I bought was Breastfeeding Made Simple. Read it from cover to cover. Proud to say that I’ve been successful. For every problem that came my way, I turned to it for help. It was my bible. My daughter is hardly ever sick. Buying that book was a good investment on my child’s health.

The first and most important lesson I got from it was: breastfeeding is a learned skill. You are not born with an inherent ability to do it. It is not a simple and automatic skill like breathing or eating. I remember how , when I was pregnant with my first child, my mother assured me that it is a natural thing for all mothers to do, hence I shouldn’t worry my head about it. This is one misconception that can lead to failure. It nurtures a sense of complacency in the mother. It makes her think it’s all eezy peezy and when it’s finally time to do it, she realizes how difficult it is and gives up.

I would never forget my two days at the hospital after the delivery of my second child. It was a stressful time for me. My husband ( a nurse) kept insisting that I should give the baby a bottle. He was afraid that my daughter would get dehydrated. I explained to him the things that I had read in the book . He countered with, “You shouldn’t believe all the things you read in books. I’ve taken care of many patients suffering from dehydration.” Exasperated, I told him, “You may be a nurse, but you are not trained in lactation.” That closed the argument. If it weren’t for that book, I would have been too ignorant to stand my ground. I would not have succeeded.

Learning to Count

Chiqui — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 20:36:25 +0000

My two-year-old never ceases to amaze me. I was picking up some scattered toys when I heard her counting from one to ten all by herself. Moments like this can fill a mother’s heart with so much happiness. So I’m marking down July 24, 2008 as a day when my baby reached another milestone in her life.

I’ve been teaching her to count since she was a year old. We would count whenever we’d go up and down the stairs or whenever we put away the toys and stuff that she’d mess up in the living room. The best that she could say was “two, tee, two, tee” (two, three, two, three). Last month she liked to say “eat, nigh, eat, nigh” (eight, nine,eight,nine) everytime she got hold of the phone.

All kinds of success can be attributed to something. In this case, I think, her being in preschool has reinforced her learning. And to think that she started going to school only two weeks ago.

For two months now she’s been fascinated with Oswald, an octopus cartoon character on the Noggin/Nick Jr. channel. I can’t understand why she loves it. The program is very dry and unexciting. I guess because it’s supposed to be an educational show for preschoolers. She has this book, that I bought at the 99 Cent Store, entitled “Counting with Oswald” by Phoebe Beinstein and illustrated by Etsu Kahata. Before going to bed she’d always look for it saying, “Osald, whey aah you? Whey aah you, Osald?”. When she finds it, she’d hand it over to me to read. We’ve been doing this for about two months. I can memorize the book from cover to cover. I’m sick of it actually. But now that my baby can count on her own, I suppose I owe you my thanks, Oswald.