Making Traffic Work for Me

Monday traffic is something I usually sleep off (me bad, I know). With the usual 1 hour travel time from our suburb to the office, I have to find ways to amuse myself. We listen to news, chit chat, I check my FB account, and noticing my bag in disarray, did something new while stuck in traffic at the intersection of Macapagal and Edsa: fix my bag.

Now, I have about 5 mini pouches inside my bag, which makes me feel I am terribly organized.

Way to go! ( talking to myself)

small bags really doesn't work for me.
what with all the bricks i have in my bag. lol!

and tadahhhh! can;t bring myself to post the before pic =)

Call me, Baby

At 11.25 am, I try to stop what I’m doing, take a few deep breaths, settle in my seat and prepare. It’s going to be the best few minutes (would depend on how much he wants to talk to Mom, or his busy-ness with playing or other stuff) of my day. I’m going to call my son, if he hasn't beaten me to it yet.

Jared is now in Kindergarden, my 4 year old precocious son. The love and light of my life and my best friend (yes, he call me his best friend. Me, among the dog, our handy man Mang Edgar, his Tati, my officemates, and just about anybody who plays with him . haha!).

He usually blurts out the usual “heyo, mom”, and states the obvious “I’m calling you”.

 

Then, he’ll regale me with whatever left a mark on his memory in his 3 hours of school. And I found out, the elevators bringing the bags up to his second floor classroom, the Ate in school, the good and bad Miguel (his classmates), the singing and dancing and coloring occupied his time. Sometimes, he’ll say a word or two about the lesson when pressed.

 

Throughout the day, he’ll call me sometimes up to 12 times, only a few seconds each time and mostly just to say he’s eating something, or asking me where his train was, or just to prove he knows my office number by heart. No matter how short, it’s enough to make me feel like who I first and foremost am—a mother to this little boy at the other end of the telephone line.

*I write this to remind myself of life’s little pleasures, of babies growing up into toddlers and then preschoolers, and to always, always make time for my son no matter how crazily busy it gets at work.*

Science Experiment #2: Fizzling, Sizzling Fun with Baking Soda

Anything involving a mess, este =) colors in all its form (chalk, crayon, watercolor, paint, food color, will make my son happy these days.

My constant troll on Pinterest yielded this amazing, entertaining and cheap (stress on the cheap) way to entertain a preschooler for about hmmm, 30 minutes.

Prepare things from your kitchen: I only needed my cookie sheet, food colors, the ever-reliable baking soda (more on its use on succeeding posts) and vinegar.

Add a few drops of color to vinegar in small containers. Spread a thin layer of baking soda on the cookie sheet. Droppers would be recommended but Jared outgrew the droppers a long time ago. I'm glad we kept a syringe (no needle) and used that instead. Better than the spoons.

Prepare to add droplets to the baking soda and be amazed!

He is looking like a mad scientist here.

It fizzles!!!

Even mommy is amazed. =)

A Visit to HMR

A few weekends ago, we finally checked out that giant SM Hypermart at Sucat. The area which also houses HMR (Surplus goods).

We visited the week before the Pacquio fight so the dad was in a boxing fervor.

Nice bathroom accessories.

I'm turning to a chair person. I love the pops of color this red chairs bring.

Top load washing machines.

Slow cookers, coffe makers/grinders, waffle maker, popcorn maker, pressure cooker, all sorts of rice cooker etc etc. This is where I lingered the most.

Rows and rows of toys. Jared's eyes got bigger when he saw these....

But almost popped out at the sight of all the motor vehicle toys on display! I mean, they look really good grouped together like that. Alas, they are 100v so the daddy does not want to be bothered.

I think this is a best buy. P900 for a rubbermaid high chair.

There are also strollers and cribs.

Lightning Mcqueen: Number 95.

 "Can we buy this dad, please?"

After daddy said no to Mcqueen. "How about this firetruck?" =)

Go visit HMR at East Service Road, near the Sucat exit. You can easily spend 3 hours looking around the place without really buying anything -- like we did.

A Boy's Best Friend

I had my first dog at 11 when we moved to Las Pinas and there was space to actually raise a dog. I named him Lassie. =)

He was this big and huggable Great Dane, and I bathed him and fed him and played with him. Sadly, he passed away from what I believe to this day, was poisoning. I had a string of dogs after: Tetchie, Donkey (he looked like one when we got him), Milky but no one compared to my dear, old boy Lassie. I offered gumamela at his grave in our backyard for a month after he left us--that was how much I loved him.

My husband has had his fair share of pet dogs, too and would often tell of the pet he carried from their house at Muntinlupa to the town (Bayan) to look for a vet.

But given our current set up, there is no way we can have a pet now.

So, our son has sort of adopted my in-laws' house pet Sab.

Hi, Sab!



I'm also a dog, mom (and proceeded to lick the floor!!!)

Happiness in a Cupcake

We've been seeing this cupcake in Pinterest for the longest time, but they look time-consuming to make. And without househelp, I was not up to the task of washing a lot of bowls and dishes this baking project would require.

But, an inspection of the cupboard yielded a Betty Crocker Angel Cake mix, which would cut the process by half. So, we took on the challenge.


All we needed to do was add water, milk and oil to the cake mix. I read, again in Pinterest, that for a richer cake mix, replace oil with melted butter and replace water with milk.

Mix, mix and mix some more.

Then the fun part begins!

Separate the mix in smaller bowls. Add drops of color....




And voila! A rainbow in your kitchen!



Layer the batter one at a time.




Remember to pose in between =)



Extend your patience and wait for it to bake. The boy was so excited he camped out in front of the oven, with a flashlight, waiting for the prescribed number of minutes for the cupcakes to bake.


Alas, it took longer than usual because the cupcakes were brimming and we churned out giant cupcakes.



Still, despite the paleness in color (use poweder or gel color mix next time--something I can't find in the market yet), now my son thinks I'm a kitchen genius who can whip out delightful things in the kitchen.


If happiness can be described by a cupcake, then we had our slice that afternoon.



Eat and enjoy!

Our Surprise

And I hope we can pull it off.

The boy almost gave us away the other day by showing his daddy scraps of paper with his attempts at the words below.

It was good I hid what we fully wrote.

So, if you were able to scan that QR code daddy, we love you and happy father's day!

Now go and treat our son (and me) out to lunch. hahaha.

in his own handwriting

Our Mean Ice Machine

Just before summer officially ended, my husband brought home this mean ice crusher.

It’s a big, heavy metal ,machine that crushes tube ice in seconds, turning them into flaky white ice best for halo-halo.

We’ve tried it 2x, and both times, we were amazed at how fast it could churn out ice. Too bad, the rainy days have started but I have grand plans of teaching entrepreneurial skills to my son next summer.

I’ll teach him how to sell, halo halo!

For now, we'll enjoy bits and pieces of the sun's last rays. Ahh, summer I miss you already!

Asserting His Independence

Oh my, my boy is a baby no more! 

My own bag. He insists on bringing his own bag with his things: toys and food, when we go out.

Big Bike for a Big Boy. Recently, he has learned to ride his big bike--a birthday surprise from Grandma.

Eats without requiring assitance from us. On a recent trip to Subic, he left our table to join the big boys at the other table and heartily ate his chicken and rice. Alll on his own.

No more tears. No more crying during his last boooster shot!

Wants to go to the Big School. It will be a logistics nightmare if we enroll him in the big school now -- he'll probably be the first one to be picked up by the service, and me thinks he is too young to ride the service by himself (without grandma or another adult we trust). He passed the entrance exam with a perfect score (well, except for the attiude part-- as explained by the guidance counselor, which is the ki'ds behavior while taking the test).