Don't bring a toy to school

We have the same smile no? :)

Conversation with my little boy last night:



Mommy: When you go to big school, and then a little boy will get your toy. What will you do?


Little boy: Who’s the little boy Mom? What’s his name?


Mommy: Let’s say his name is Jay.


Little boy: The toy have my name*, it’s mine. But I will share with him.
*right now, he marks all his toys with his name.


Mommy: But what if he says it’s his na. He won’t return it to you. What will do you?


Little boy: Why will he not return it to me?


Mommy: Because he likes to take other kids’ toy.


Little boy: That’s not nice! I will tell teacher.


Mommy: But what if teacher is not there.


Little boy: Why will teacher be not there?


Mommy: Maybe she went home na?


Little boy: But teacher don’t go home before us.


Mommy: Ok, maybe teacher is in the bathroom.


Little boy: I don’t like the little boy.


Mommy: Ok. What will you do?


Little boy: I will not bring a toy to school na lang Mommy.


So there it is :D


Every pre-school Mom’s fear is your child gets bullied in big school. My son’s an only child so every kid he meets, he treats them as playmates. Sometimes he meets a bully or a kid who takes advantage of my son’s friendliness. I hate to see that happen but it does happen, specially when we’re at a new place or at a kids’ party. I try to teach him how to handle bullies or kids who take advantage of him. I rather that I witness it happening so I can then teach how to deal with the situation.


Our little one will be in big school this coming June, I hope I’ve prepared him enough to fight off bullies. From last night’s conversation, it looks like we still have a long way to go. But at least we’ve taken a step towards that direction.

Listen, and pray fervently

Devastating news woke me up from my nap yesterday. Japan was hit by a huge earthquake and then shortly followed by Tsunami. I have officemates, friends and family in Japan so I was worried. Seeing the videos made it even scarier. My Papa, a Nostradamus fan, said that Nostradamus predicted all these - and lots of scarier events to happy by December 2012.

I fervently hope and pray that the predictions won't come true. Right now though, Japan needs our prayers and help. We must do what we can, when we can. It's just the humane thing to do.

It makes you think of course about your life. A very sad reminder for us to savor each day, do the best the you can and tell the people you love, that you love them. May we strive to do that each day. And PRAY with all our hearts and souls to keep us away from harm.

Chickun Lunch Smack Down

Back in Cagayan de Oro, we have the yummiest lechon manok - there was Coron-Coron, Dear Manok (and my Tita would always say Love, Liza hehe), The Barn, Sr Pedro, among others.  For a time, my hubby and I were thinking of setting up a lechon manok business here in Laguna.  But had to postpone coz we couldn't decide on which one.



Andoks - half chicken

Anyhoo, so my officemates and I got to talking about how yummy lechon manoks are.  Of course we couldn't agree which one is the yummiest.  The Luzon folks have their Baliwag and Andoks.  The new entrant to this is Chooks-to-go.  I actually love Chooks-to-go, so I was assigned to bring it to our "Chickun Lunch Smack Down" LOL 

Baliwag - whole chicken

The "Chickun Lunch Smack Down" was scheduled on a Friday.  Thursday night, I asked the hubs to buy me Chooks-to-go at the nearby Rustan's Supermarket.  It was 7pm, but they didn't have any available chicken anymore.  So after the hubs picked me up, we went to a Chooks-to-go take out counter, but at 8pm, they didn't have any stocks too.  I decided to just buy the next day, before going to the office.  The Chooks-to-go guy told me that they'll be open at 9am and will have cooked chicken at that time.

Sr Pedro - Whole chicken

The next day, I stopped by the same Chooks-to-go store at around 10:15am, but they still don't have any chicken cooked!  Moral of the story: don't count on the chicken before they are cooked :D  And another moral of the story:  Chooks-to-go need to improve their inventory and store hours.  Seriously.

We still had our "Chickun Lunch Smack Down".  I just grabbed a lechon manok from the Sr Pedro stall, beside Chooks-to-go.  My officemates brought Baliwag and Andoks.  To this day though, no one wants to say which lechon manok is the yummiest hehe  But in terms of pricing, Sr Pedro is the winner at P189 for a whole chicken.  Andoks was priced at P150 for half a chicken.  Baliwag was priced at around P300 for a whole chicken.  So who's the winner now? haha

*Pictures taken by my boss.  Yes, the event was co-sponsored by the management :D

Growing up

My little one turned 5 last February.  And he's so proud that he's 5.  He now eats with us on the dinner table, when before he ate on his table.  He started to shower on his own, although still with adult supervision.  He now sleeps on his own bed, although still in the same room as us, and it's actually just an extension of our bed.  And he's learned to bike without the training wheels.  In fact yesterday, we biked around our village together.  Can't wait to bring him to bike with us going to Cardiac Hill!

Family of bikers :)

Our bed has been invaded

... by Mario, Luigi and the Angry birds!


This meant no space for Mommy :(



Philippine Tourism as it's finest... or NOT!

At the Hong Kong Airport

My whole family travelled to Hong Kong last February.  I booked the tickets online through Cebu Pacific's seat sale promo last October 2010.  Got the tickets for just about PhP3k/per person round trip.  Pretty neat price, right?

As we were travelling on very tight budget, I prepared a detailed budget.  It was the first time my whole family will be travelling together, a group of 6 people.  Needless to say, it was a difficult task and I horrifyingly forgot to include the Travel Tax that travellers on budget airlines are required to pay.  As I went to pay the travel tax, each person had to pay P1.6k.  That's already the equivalent to a one way fare!  And seriously, where does this travel tax go?  Only Terminal 3 is working fine.  But Terminal 1 is still awful.  I mean, seriously?  What was I supposed to do but pay.  Grudgingly.  Plus we had to pay Terminal Fee of P750.  What for?

Anyway, we got to HK airport.  We were travelling with child, so we went to the immigration officer together and he was pleasant.  My son couldn't reach the counter, so the HK officer stood up, and asked my son his name, again very pleasant.  What a way to great a visitor to their country. 

When we went home to Pinas, we lined up for immigration counter for more than 30 minutes.  It was around 4am, we didn't have any good sleep and still we had to line up for a very long time.  The special counter opened up, so we moved there.  My son was so tired by then, so he was sitting on my feet.  The Philippine immigration officer, asked us very rudely, where my son is.  I replied, he's sitting down on the feet.  He answered, again very rudely "Ipatayo nyo.".  Whoa!  Is that how you get treated in your own country?  Welcome back Pinoys!  I stared at him, at his name plate so I wouldn't forget his face or name - Officer Domiguez.  I remember you.

My mom came here over the week to attend a seminar, and dropped by our home last Friday.  On Saturday, we brought her to the airport.  Before going to the airport, we passed by Rustan's where she got a wallet.  We didn't have much time, so she just shoved the little Rustan's package inside a bigger paper bag.  After going throug the first set of Xray machine, she noticed that her Rustan's package was missing from the paper bag.  She went back to the Xray people, and they all said they gave it to a Pinay with a foreigner husband.  Mama saw the Pinay and asked her, she said she gave it back to the Xray folks because it wasn't hers.  But the Xray folks at Gate 2 of Terminal 3 denied it and wouldn't even answer my Mom anymore.  She reported it to the Police, but they couldn't do a thing.  Lesson this time?  Be careful with all your belongings, if they Xray folks like it, it becomes their belonging.

We all brag about our wonderful country.  And it is a wonderful country, but our airport show a diffirent story.  It's not lovable at all.  We locals don't always have good experiences, what more if you're a foreigner?  The airport is the first impression a traveller has of a country or a place.  Why don't we improve it so travellers feel welcomed and ultimately, someday return to visit.

4 months?

The majestic Disneyland castle

It has been four long months since I last posted here.  Life just took over.  I posted about our problems with the Registry of Deeds (Calamba) in my previous post in October.  We finally were lucky enough to get all the papers prepared come December, so we were able to move to our (relatively) new house in less than 7 days.  Frenzy of activity, stress levels were so high!  We had to look for a carpenter to do a few minor repairs, get the screens changed and have a screen door installed in just 3 days.  But we did it, we moved in and spent our first holidays in our new home!

January came banging with piles of work.  School vacation is over, my Yayas came back from their annual trip home and my Mom went back home.  Then we had to prepare again for a trip to Hong Kong in February.  I spent practically the whole of January planning that trip, booking our hostel (thanks to http://www.hostelworld.com/), working on the schedule and the budget.  I'll write another post on that trip.

Then we went home again to Cagayan de Oro after our Hong Kong trip for my cousin's wedding.  It was an awesome, intimate wedding.  It was good to be with family again, to laugh, eat and chikka.

And now February is almost over - just one more day left.  Imagine that!  One thing's for sure this 2011.  I'm gonna be more active in blogging.  Swear! haha