Loving Daycare

TalentedTots has given me lots of reassurances and plenty of smiles as a parent. I love their parent portal as I'm able to see how my kids are growing apart from how they spent their day. They identify the child's interests and encourage various levels of learning and development through those interests.They give me sensible advise and they have enough activities that encourages not just the child but parents to join.

Each morning I walk my kids to daycare before I head off to work.They are always excited about the walk and they greet most of the common faces that we see (i.e., the bus driver, the old lady, parents of other kids from day care, students from Marist, and just about any friendly face that they see). Then it's a loud "Hi" to everyone as soon as we enter day care.

After logging in, I get a kiss and a hug from my kids and off they go finding something to do or someone to play with. I do appreciate the care and attention that the teachers provide. It's a small center, with a maximum of 25 students and 5 teachers. It's a big difference compared with the AKA Kindergarten that Max used to go to where it's about 15 students to 1 teacher.

I still feel guilty a lot as I miss being around my kids for the day. But at least in day care are around other kids and they are stimulated by a lot of things. I don't know enough about parenting but with how much my kids are learning, I think it was a good move for us to send them to day care. The teacher's already said how much they'll miss Max as he'll be going to Primary soon.

How Do You Measure Success

Last Friday during lunch, my colleagues (coz I didn't say much) Mark and Joy talked about their kids who all went to the same schools and were somewhere within the age groups. Mark was concerned about his eldest son whom he perceives as a dreamer. The boy enjoys playig with phone apps and is into game programming. I don't really see any reason why he's concerned about it since I can see that his kids are very passionate on what they do, be it in sports or on mobile applications. Joy's kids are quite busy with school activities and she certainly has a lot of interesting stories to share on her teenage kids. I did butt in to share how my son who's still in kindie has now learned how to keep something from us. My son did not admit to playing in the sad pit one Thurdsday afternoon despite the fact that by the time hubby picked him up from school, his clothes were all changed. He did not admit to playing in the sand pit. In fact, he highlighted other things that he did in school. But when we asked him differently, he did admit to doing that. It's a milestone and something that is actually quite concerning for me as a parent.

So my boss talked about the importance of networking, having good grades and i guess, just trying to be such a multi-tasker. I did see all of those in my older sisters but i do think that though i wasn't anywhere like them... the bibo and academically superior sort, I think I turned out ok, close enough to their level of success.  But how do you measure success?

I do recall the excitement in my sibling's eyes whenever I told them about the places that I've been to and the adventures that I've had. They were most surprised when I told them about our intention to move here to NZ. And all the more when we started to realize that goal.

I'm not the type who get star struck with just being around celebrities -- 4 years at Jewelmer certainly made me callous to the glitter and glamour of the socialite world. I'm still clueless about cars though I always wished that I'd have a chauffeur to take me wherever I wanted. Here in Auckland it seems like that idea is non-existing since people prefer to drive on their own, which I guess gives them a certain degree of freedom. I like being able to travel for leisure and then go back to some place that's familiar and what I can call as home. I like the feeling of having a choice and not be bogged down by work or nationality or just by being female. My idea of success is not regretting your life choices, being able to help others one way or the other, having a zest for life, keeping a good set of friends and having close ties with family. At the end of the day, I think these are the things that you'd like to look back to with friends, family or strangers. It's about looking back and saying, yep, I did good and I'm quite happy with what I did.

So how many of you out there still measure success with worldly titles and possessions? If that is all that pleases you then I guess you are successful indeed. So long as you're genuinely happy about it.

Returning to One Tree Hill

At dahil maaraw this weekend, we brought the kids to One Tree Hill yesterday. 40 mins bus ride lang and siguro 15 mins walk papuntang entrance ng One Tree Hill Domain. Dun merong mga sheep at lamb na grazing freely. At mag-ingat pag sa damuhan instead na sa sidewalk ka dadaan. Daming bomb!! Since both hubby and I have been up the hill already on separate occasions, we decided to skip going back up there even if the objective was just to stretch our muscles. Nothing insteresting for us kasi and tanghaling tapat, wala kang masisilungan dun. If the weather change, baka ginawin pa ang mga kids.

Sa paahan ng domain is Cornwall Park. Meron din palang mga cow dun. Di ko alam saan natutunan nina Max and Rose yung pag-clap ng hand to try to get the attention of the cows, and chicken na pakalat kalat. Maganda lakaran yung Century Walk, taas ng mga puno at puro daffodils sa tabi ng daan. Tumambay kami dun sa tabi, ganda ng bermuda against tall trees. Malawak rin kasi yung tatakbuhan ng mga bata dun so ayun, we let them run around and play with a ball. Kung tutuusin, almost 2 hours lang kami andun pero dahil nap time, nakatulog na si Rose while si Max, started complaining na pagod na raw (kakatakbo siguro). So we got home soonafter. Tulog sa bus ang mga kids. Ganda ng place at masarap siyang balikan. Ok dun mag picninc at mag chillax lang. If the kids get older, we can bring them inside the Star Dome observatory. Dun din maraming cherry blossom trees so i look forward to seeing them bloom.

When It Rains, There's Hail

I keep hearing about the "typical Auckland weather." This weekend has been just like that. The day starts a bit gloomy, with some drizzle, then the sun shows up for a while. And that's long enough to encourage you to hang your laundry outside. Come noon, the rains creeps in again, but subtly. Then the sun's up again. Then it gets really dark with more rain slashing through everything. It was unfortunate that I was carrying some heavy grocery bags while walking back to the house. I was already in our block, the wind blew off my hood, my cap felt soaking wet and in less than five minutes away from the driveway, I felt little stones hitting me... there's hail!

Why We Hesitate to Buy a TV

When I was flatting, I've only seen four digital channels in my flat mate's 40 inch LCD TV. They didn't have Sky unlike my friend from the city.

Months have passed and somehow, we're fine with watching the six o'clock news on the laptop while having dinner. The kids got their mobile devices that keep them entertained. They watch cartoons and movies in my laptop. There's also TVNZ On Demand which features episodes of various TV shows that they've recently broadcasted.

Nowadays, TV is not your only source of information and entertainment. I think this is the time where people have no excuse of not knowing what's going on in the world since almost everyone's got access to the internet. And mobile devices have become mainstream that it strongly competes with traditional media for people's time. That's a huge change compared with maybe 10years ago?

A couple of weeks back, I raised the idea to hubby about finally getting a TV. So we browsed through PriceMe and has Googled our way through product reviews. At least now we know which store offers the best price for TV. When asked why I now think that we need a TV? I just told hubby that it's just so we can watch our movies on a bigger screen. I guess that wasn't convincing enough so we both ended up still hesitant. Maybe we'll just wait for Boxing Day as we need to focus our finances on more important things.