Sophia Goes to School but Nanay Also Learns

Busying herself with the instruction manual. Cool.

One semester has passed for my school girl and there have been obvious changes. Her bulol words had slowly diminished and she has been doing good with her relationship with her vocabulary. Her Tatay Rhambo always brings with him an army truck load of English but he still gets dizzy and yes, his nose bleeds when they talk. Haha! Sophia still watches TV a lot but she's now aware that there are shows she's not allowed to see, like some cartoons from Cartoon Network. She used to spank & slap anyone when she's happy and more so when she's mad, but now it can be avoided. We learned {yes, she's the one who goes to school but we BOTH benefit from it} the phrase from her pretty Teacher Lois, "hands for loving, not for hurting". So when she suddenly has the urge to do so, I'd automatically utter the powerful phrase and she'll gracefully stop. I'm also amazed at how magical my birthday wish was for her. Do you still remember when I wrote it here that my birthday wish for her was for her to wear her slippers without my prodding? Well, she always does now! I think I should make a Christmas wish quick & that is for her to learn how to pack away her toys PROPERLY. Really, it's beginning to be an eye sore.

Sophia's 1st Assessment: Good in Manipulatives

She spent her 1st day in the drawing board.

Whenever my Little Bebeng (LB) brings home her assignment notebook, it causes me panic as to what her teacher had written there. Well, she was scheduled to have her first assessment last August 17th. I thought it was something else. I'm scared to see that I'm being called for juvenile delinquency! Haha. Nah, she's too young for that. And I will tell her father dearest to be present for that event in case it happens. Just so he'll feel what his parents felt when we were in highschool. Oh, maybe I will accompany him and bring a first-aid kit. I don't want him to get sick and suffer from hypertension. Yes, a stretcher or stand-by ambulance might help, too. Okay, I'm exaggerating things. Sophia is a good girl. Well, she has these attacks I would like to call "wriggler attack" that definitely resemble to the movement of a wriggler. In Filipino, a kiti-kiti. She has tendencies to be all over the place. Some says it's a good sign of being healthy as opposed to a kid, lame & sitting in one corner, very close to be a wallflower. But sometimes, LB was beyond being active.

During LB's first day in school, she was all giggling & smiling. She didn't do all the tasks that she was supposed to do but I'm relieved that she didn't do anything offensive. Her 2nd day was different, she refused to join in the circle, where they were all singing and dancing, and chose to play with puzzles. She wailed like a baby cow prepped for slaughter house until it was time for snacks. She wanted to eat her baon right away without doing their routine. Her teacher's rule: you can't eat until you pray. And like a mother hen worried for my favorite chick, I asked her teacher if I can help her. Teacher said yes, but only if she will pray. So the rest of her classmates were half way through their food when she finally prayed with her teacher that goes along like this, "Aming Diyos, Salamat Sa'Yo, sa mga pagkaing ito, Amen." LB's face lit up when I entered their classroom to help her with her food. But I left her the moment I saw she can do it by herself. It has always been my motherhood mantra to teach her to be independent. Since then, it was a much easier life for the two of us. Their school director was right. She tends to run over the lives of the adults around her. She thought that she can do things as she pleases because once she throws tantrums, us, the adults around her easily give in. I slightly blame myself for not educating her nanny then. And well, MIL said she didn't want to go through all the nag & sermon so she lets LB does her things. As the mother of the kid-on-jury, I must do everything to make it right. Even if it made my heart bled so many times, I never gave in. So far, so good. Well, there were occasional bouts of arguments, but that's how a normal mother-daughter relationship should be. I think it's healthy. It can't be goo-goo and gah-gah all the time, you know.