The best birthday gift

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I don’t give out invitations for my birthday anymore. So I don’t expect to receive tons of gifts from friends and family during my birthday. I do miss opening gifts but ever since my son can already write, I have been receiving the most precious gift that a mom can ever receive. A birthday card from my son.

It’s not exactly a long love letter. Most of the time it just says “Happy Birthday”, but the fact that he makes it weeks before my birthday, “in case I forget Mama”, makes it even more special. He doesn’t really forget to greet me on the day of my birthday because I usually remind him.

Summer vacation in the province

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The last family trip that we had was last summer break. We had a two-month vacation in the province. RJ was able to get to know and play with his cousins. I was able to have a stress-free life for two months, well almost-stress-free.

 

Life in the province is so simple. If there’s a school there that’s as good as the school’s here in the city, I would definitely prefer living there. But the education system, even the private school’s there, are not as advanced as the RJ’s school here in Manila.

 

How I miss life in the province.

 

An Early Birthday Gift

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My birthday is on September 11. I'll be turning... let me count first. I'm turning 35 on my next birthday.

My son surprised me with a birthday card last month. But there's an instruction with it, I can't open it before my actual birthday. He wants to make sure that he already gave me an early gift, in case he doesn't remember to give me one on the exact day of my birthday. Clever boy!

I may not be able to share, with you right now, what he has written in the card, but this I'm absolutely very sure - it has love, RJ on it.

how to beat older chess opponents

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RJ's favorite bonding time with me is playing chess. I taught him how to move each of the pieces when he was 7 years old. From then on he always tries to find the time to play chess with me. Usually when he's not busy with other things or right before bedtime.

He very smart, tricky actually. He knows the right time to play when he will surely beat me. So he usually challenge me to a game of chess when he knows that I'm not in the mood to play.

But he's really good, he's very smart, there are days when I actually am in the mood to beat him in chess but he still wins. If your child is into video and handheld games, buy a chess board. It's a good exercise for the mind and a good diversion from those gadgets that kids love playing these days.

my picky eater

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RJ is a very picky eater. Because I don't allow him to eat unhealthy food, like chips, candies and soda, I make sure that we are well-stocked with his favorite food that's not bad for his health. He doesn't like vegetables, so I'm really thankful that he loves fruits. I usually mix his fruits with yogurt because he loves that as well.

There are days when I find ways to make him eat his vegetables. Just the other day, he ate broccoli. I put steamed broccoli on a microwavable dish, put quickmelt cheese that's enough to cover the whole vegetable when it melts and then sprinkle parmesan cheese on top. He ate it! He said it's yummy.

I'm looking forward to the day when he'll eat his veggies without complaining, frowning and saying it's yuck. I want to cook more healthy food because all the fried chicken and fried fish, that he likes, are making me fat.

rj's 8th birthday

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I was looking for RJ's 9th birthday pictures but I can't find a single one. I may have downloaded the pictures that's not labeled properly. I will look for it later.

Here's a post originally published on 2009 June 22:

Today is my son's 8th birthday. He asked me to wake him up at 12 midnight, so I prepared something that will make it memorable. I cut out a big "8" out of a sliced bread, the first one looked like a snowman with a small head so I made another one. I spread Hershey's syrup on the bread and this is how it looked like =)

RJ can barely sit up. He just blew the candle before the "happy birthday" song was even finished and went right back to sleep.

When I woke him up at 5am to prepare for school (service picks him up at 6am), he saw the bread with the candle and asked me if I woke him up at midnight. He didn't even remember blowing the candle =)

my son's summer activities

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My son's school was one of the earliest to end school year 2010-2011. I made a list of summer activities for him but just as the saying goes -the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray. These are his daily activities:

I bought a table easel, poster paint and lots of bond papers for him. He has a boxful of watercolors, colored pencils and crayons. I have been buying second hand art books for kids, so he has lots of those also in his bookshelf. I enrolled him in an art class, at Museo Pambata, last summer vacation but I wasn't satisfied. Although RJ did enjoy making arts and crafts, the lessons were appropriate for preschoolers and he 's already 8 years old at that time.

I've noticed that he sneezes nonstop  in the morning and easily gets cough and colds since he stopped swimming June 2010. He started swimming when he was just 2, trains with a swim team daily and has been joining swimming competitions. I didn't want him to hate swimming so I allowed him to have a swim-break for a year. Since the start of summer break he's been swimming daily again.

Basketball during weekends.

Running at night.

And we watched Kaos. If you haven't yet, do watch it. My son had so much fun watching the acrobats and magical illusions. I'm 101% sure your kids will love it too.

We will have a one month vacation in the province next month. Hopefully I can find a good tennis coach and will also enrol him in guitar and piano lessons.

 

mommy moments #6

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This is the song that we sing everyday, because he used to watch Barney 7 days a week, when he was still a younger. How I miss those days *sniff*.

mommy moments #5

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One of RJ's favorite, as of this writing, is playing chess. An achievement for him is beating Mama, that's me!, in chess. And yes, he's done that countless of times already.

Chess takes his mind away from facebook and his handheld games. So even if he beats me, he's getting better and better each day, I don't mind at all.

mommy moments #3

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Oreo is my son's all time favorite snack. For his mid-afternoon and midnight snack, he only need oreo cookies. Eating oreos alone will never be complete without milk right?

He's a thin boy but he likes low-fat milk. He doesn't lick and dunk the oreo. What he does is soak the oreo in milk.

Who doesn't love oreo and milk? How do you eat your oreo?

original post: who doesn't love oreo?

Mommy Moments #2

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When RJ was still in preschool, he was into collecting dinosaur toys. Name a dinosaur and he has it. He also has a vast collection of dinosaur books. That's the time when he loves telling people, "I want to be a paleontologist someday".

For him, eating out is synonymous to Happy Meal or Kids Meal. He likes collecting toys from Jollibee and McDonald's. But he doesn't get his way most of the time.  

His all-time favorite -- legos. No matter how expensive, I will buy him more legos if he wants it. He's a very creative and imaginative boy and the creation he makes with his legos are so amazing!

He loves using his toys as "models" too.

Gadgets? He doesn't want to play his Nintendo DSi anymore. He doesn't have a cellular phone either. I do allow him to use my laptop once in a while. But once he starts using it, he doesn't want to turn it off anymore.

Visit other Mama's as they share their kids favorite toys and gadgets at

today is mom's day

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Mommy Moments #1

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This is my first ever Mommy Moments. Just like any ordinary kid (read: only child), my son throw tantrums and it doesn't fail to surprise me that he does it anywhere, anytime. Now though that he is 8 years old already, it doesn't happen that often.

He was crying already and to make matters worse, my 11 year old cousin played with his hair making him more angry. Mama's hugs and kisses made him stop cying.