Chicken and Banana Stew

Some gutsy souls have asked what I do all day as a stay-at-home momma. Well, for those who still wonder, just please stop, haha! Well, look at my healthy and happy child as an evidence of "my work". And I think you already know that one of the not-so secrets to successfully raising a healthy and happy child is feeding her with quality food. Yup, not junkies.

Heads up, it can be tricky. Sometimes, there are parents who only think of vegetables as healthy. And that vegetables can make their kids "fat". What? What's up with that? Fat doesn't mean healthy, right? 

Learning Through Play with Ogalala World

Three years ago, I decided to send my daughter to a Progressive School. In my judgment as her primary caregiver, I believed that she'd learn more without the concrete structure and routine that most traditional schools offer. Any four-year-old learns best through play. And she did, with flying and sparkling rainbow colors. Now, she'll be a first grader on Monday, in the same school. She can now read a bit, has a good handwriting and is overly excited to learn. "It's fun, 'Nay", that's what she always says. In the deepest corner of my competitive heart, I want her to be on top, I want her to be best in everything. But my mommy heart pounds for something else. I just really want her to have fun and enjoy her daily life as a student. After all, my parenting goal has always been to raise a healthy and happy kid. 

So when Ogalala World invited us to attend a bloggers workshop cum playdate, I nonchalantly said yes. You see, I decided to go to blogging/media events only if it will help me enrich my life as a woman, wife and mom. And my decision was right. 

Revisited the Academy

We attended the wedding of our friend last month, which was held at St. Ignatius Chapel inside the Philippine Military Academy in Baguio City. Before the rehearsals, we got to walk around the place that was once home for my husband and his mistah for four years. The "Pamantasang Malapit sa Airport", as joked by many graduates and cadets, is one awesome venue for photography and Instagram. Although I am an IG addict myself, I only managed to post one; didn't want to waste our precious time posting our every move, hehe. It's a rather important keepsake since anyone's visit to the academy will not be complete without having a touristy photo in front of the Melchor Hall. So it's still special and also, I took several snapshots in this particular spot. It's practically new so the two Cpt Rs and their brats (term for PMA graduates' kids) had fun posing. And oh, jumpshots and more craziness from my darlings, too! It's really one of my life's greatest pleasures to see them having fun. 

Lysol To Go: Perfect for Moms on the Go!

Long before motherhood happened to me, I have already been used to packing a lot of things whenever I leave the house. I don't want the feeling of needing something and not having it on my bag. Like what I said in this post, my husband thought I was insinuating to run away with him when I packed a week's worth bag for our 3-day trip to Baguio, haha! It was crazy, I know, but I'm glad I didn't end up buying clothes or anything that I forgot to bring. 

And now that I'm now a mom to an amazing girly girl with an energy of four rowdy boys, I can't always bring a big bag of my regular everything because #backache. In almost 7 years of learning the ropes of child-rearing, I have realized that I only need to make my little miss healthy and happy. Everything else will surely follow.

The Book With No Pictures by B.J. Novak

I've been following a few mom bloggers abroad. And if you are a regular reader of mine, you know that I love this amazing mom from New York City behind Mommy Shorts. Her name is Ilana Wiles. Remember her Evil Baby Glare Off last year? My daughter got in top 6! Anyway, her level of creativity makes me want to be her. As in, when I grow up I want to be Ilana, haha! Of course, I'm kidding. I'm just one of her league of fans. So Ilana posted a photo of this book on her Instagram (kudos to me for finding it amidst her 2,412 posts) and wrote about it on her spectacular site. This fanatic got curious, as always when she posts new stuff. I told myself I'd get one for my girl.

2014 ended just like that and I never got the book for my little bedtime reader. 

Fast forward to one serendipitous day that Amazon put it on a 4-dollar sale. Yay! I thought I can get it and use the remaining money on my PayPal. But then, just before I put it in my cart, I realized the shipping fee will kill my joy eventually. I still didn't give up, though. In the middle of what seemed to be a deep contemplation on how to get one, a message popped on my Facebook. It was from my Florida-based friend who got married this month. She was asking me about the gown as I was one of her secondary sponsors. My friend happened to be my daughter's godmom so I sweet-talked her in buying it for me her godchild. Tee-hee.

Problem solved. 

Selective Sharenting, Please

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I was already a mom when R opened our joint Facebook account. He did it for Farmville. Well, games and our big boys; it's inevitable. Eventually, he opened his own account and I took over the old one. Over the past six years of using it, I regretfully committed cyber sins — I ranted as if I didn't have a friend, spilled out a lot of controversial family issues and shared around a thousand photos of randomness of my little girl. The latter, in all honesty, can cause a dose of eyes rolling from some single humans in my friends' list. In fact, in 2013, The Wall Street Journal coined a term, called sharenting, to emphasize exactly what most parents do in their social media accounts nowadays.

Sharenting is used to describe the overuse of social media by parents who share content based on their children. It is related to the concept of "too much information".

Different Times, Same Love

We have a different kind of relationship, my mom and I. One day, we can be the best chismisan partners, the next day, we'll ignore each other. In fact, as of writing this, we haven't talked for almost a month already. I assume that she has not talked to her mom, too; our Lola Mommy. As for me and my 6-year-old, so far, we are best buddies. However, despite the silence between us, I know that she loves me, I know that she cares.

Perhaps, she's just waiting for me to get in touch first. It's Mama's nature to be ma-pride and mataray, haha. So when Pia and I saw the new commercial of Nido Fortified, we were both broken by our emotions. After watching it, we literally said "awww" and she said that the grandma there was like her Lola, my mom. True. Mama can be stern and square whenever Pia gets kulit but she never fails to recognize that her only granddaughter is generally a sweet, amazing girl. ♥