from thomas the tank to handy manny

i remember when i was a kid and E.T. (the movie which became a hit in early 80's was the "it" thing during those days. my mother bought me an E.T doll which i became so fond of that i forgot that i have other and better-looking dolls. it's must probably because of the movie which i have watched a lot of times which made me love it for some time.

now that am a mother myself i also try to spoil my kids  a little by buying them some items of their favorite characters. i also get amuse at how kids, particularly my eldest kid, change his loyalty as he grows up and gets exposed to more fictional or cartoon characters.

it was only last year that he was soooo into thomas the tank. aside from toy shops, we also frequent the characters section in landmark or SM for other thomas the tank merchandises.

trying out the thomas the tank pajama set and cap which he got as gifts last christmas

but obviiously, it's not only inigo who's fond of this character. on the day that i was discharged from the hospital where i gave birth to theo, a lady approached jude in the lobby while i was in the restroom. the lady is the mom of the kid who we earlier saw and we thought shares the same age with inigo. we found it funny that the kiddo also has the same thomas the tank backpack, cap and watch which inigo was wearing that time, both of them are holding thomas the tank toy train engine too. :)

but what's more funny is the other boy's name is also inigo! hehehe. it's the reason why the mommy approached jude, to ask if our kid's name is indeed "inigo" as he heard us calling our son's name in the lobby.

after thomas, inigo became fond of lightning mcqueen (from the movie cars) though their love story is only short-lived. :) it's only this year that i allowed him to watch the dvd of cars that's why he's quite a 'late-bloomer' on this character.

it's buzz lightyear (from toy story movies) which he has a strong bonding that he brings his toy (the buzz lightyear action figure we gifted to him thru santa) wherever we go. it's like woody for andy, and the only thing lacking is his name imprinted on one of the soles of buzz's shoes. uhm, he actually planned to do it... ;)

aside from buzz lightyear, inigo's other crazes right now are special agent oso and handy manny. he likes the adventures and gadgets oso are having while he likes the job and tools of manny... he even imagined himself as manny when i bought him his own set of tools and put them in his own tool box. his daddy fed his imagination more when he asked the tot to wear his helmet and safety glasses - inigo was thrilled!!!

he didn't remove these even after we jogged that day in the fort and strolled in piazza venezzia afterwards. inigo was obviously tickled pink whenever people are looking at him while we were having dinner and i tell him that they think he;s handy manny... abot tenga ngiti! hihi.

inigo unmindful of the inconvenience of wearing his daddy's helmet while walking :P

"us" time

i am happy that jude and i are now going out regularly as a couple ONLY; no preschooler to chase and no infant to carry. we do this two times a month as my 20-year old cousin stays with us every other sunday to get her allowance for school. i always seize this opportunity since we really don't like leaving the kids with our househelp especially at nigh, there must always be a relative around.

we're usually away for two to three hours and  must be back before midnight as experience taught us that theo wakes up around this time and cries incessantly when am not around, making me only guilty over our pleasure date, which should not be the case since jude and i really need a break from them. we don't go far anyway. our rule is our 'dating ground' should only be 15 mins. away from home and this only allows us to watch a movie in the nearest mall along pasong tamo or chill out in a bar which is actually many near our house.

the last date or gimmick we had was two sundays ago and jude brought me to a grill and bar along jupiter st. which is only 5 mins away from our house, if traffic is light and flowing. and should i say that we had a great time! too bad that am strill restricted from drinking booze or liquors (as if i was a tomadera before. hehehe) because i still nurse theo.

this only made me miss my pre-wedding days when jude and i didn't care at all for babies and breastmilk. we enjoyed pretty much our single days since the mountaineering group we belong in is very active in gimmicks and drinking sprees... 'di ba jah and mareng lui? hehehe.

 

our little handyman

look who's daddy's little helper...

yep, it's our four-year old inigo. jude called him one morning and asked him if he wanted to help him clean our trooper (i sometimes ask jude to involve our eldest in his tasks if he could since he often gets bored inside the house which makes me want to shoo him away :D) and of course, the little boy who's always excited to do big boys' jobs was fast to say "yes!"

i decided to take pictures because i found it cute, hihi. but one more reason why i took photos is to have something to show him when he's already big and uhm, lazy, that once upon a time he was his daddy's little helper. :)

but it's just last sunday, when i got back from the flea market, that jude showed me cuter pictures of inigo with our trooper...

inigo is thinking he's handy manny since i bought him some toy-tools from divi and even have his own tool box just like his daddy's.

o 'di ba? as if it's for real! :D

fish be with him

inigo told me one day that he wanted to have a pet fish. i told this to jude as soon as he got home from work. it was more of sharing to him our eldest son's latest fancy rather than pleading since i knew that having a pet in the house spells another responsibility for me... as if two little boys are not enough! but little did i know that it was the daddy who was more excited to have a pet for his boys that's why the following saturday found us in cartimar looking for a small fish bowl ('fish bowl of elmo' was how jude described it to the store owners, haha) and the fishes which we will put inside it.

inigo was so happy. we bought two goldfishes since jude said it's the easiest to maintain. it should only be one but it's me who pushed him to buy two because i felt that even fish needs a company. hehe. we 'christened them inigo fish and theo fish - how orig! hahaha!

well, even theo seemed to love the fishes. just look at his grin...

inigo was very good in taking care and/or feeding the fishes on the first few days. but now... he doesn't even bother to look at them! :-/ sometimes i call his attention and tell him that the fishes are hungry. he tells me in return, "feed them mommy, they might die..." hmpf!

 

kodak moments: the drawing and the wrestling

inigo loves to draw our family. the first ever family picture he had drawn is still in my keeping until now.

but it's just the other day that he drew a picture which made my heart leaped. this was done spontaneously and i knew somehow that it was prompted by his brotherly love...

it's inigo and theo in this picture

i had to get a camera and take photos since it was only drawn in a magnetic board and will be gone in just one swiping.

later that day i again saw him wrestling with his baby brother...

it's only then that i realized the purpose of inigo's drawing. i probably need to have it framed and hanged in all the walls of our house... nice idea, eh?

mossimo grand go-see 2010: my major rant/complaint

i'm sorry that i have to reactivate my multiply site by starting with these grievances. but as a parent i really felt we were cheated and somehow exploited by the organizers of the grand go-see last sunday and i felt i should do something about it. it's our first time to join such casting calls. some of  you may know that am not fond of joining this auditions no matter how some people push me to join one for inigo (humility aside) because we don't have the patience for the whole ordeal of queuing and casting. but i joined this one because i thought it will be convenient for all of us particularly for the little tot.

to give you a background, i saw here in multiply last june the announcement that mossimo is in search for its next print-ad models. as stated in their mechanics, i sent the pictures of inigo thru the my fame and fortune multiply site and waited for their invitation for the go-see. we had one. the process of joining was clearly stated in their invite that's why i decided that we push thru with the audition. but this didn't happen and we arrived and left festival-mall's mini-trade hall totally disappointed.

here's my draft letter, i wish to submit this soon to whatever government agency/ies responsible for such events.

***

_______

_______

This is to raise my concerns regarding the Mossimo Baby Grand Go-See which happened last 4^th of July 2010 in Mini-Trade Hall, Festival Mall in Alabang, Muntinlupa City. I received an invitation (attached) from one of the organizers of the event, My Fame and Fortune agency, more than a week earlier for the go-see for my son, Inigo Bustamante. It was mentioned in the invitation that we only need to register between 10:00 am and 1:00 pm and be back by 1:30 pm and wait for our designated number to be called for the casting. We arrived at the venue past 11:00 am and I was surprised and dismayed to learn that more than 1,000 kids aged one to four years old were invited for the one-day go-see. But I since I still had faith on the process mentioned in the invite I continued on with the registration and my son was number 434.  We took one of the limited seats provided inside the venue and waited for the casting to begin. Please take note that I was also with my nine-month old son who I decided to bring along since he’s still breastfed, and my cousin who I tagged along to help me with my kids.

 Twenty-minutes had passed when I became curious on what was going on the other side of the hall so I decided to check what we were missing. I realized that the photo shoot for the kids have had already started in one of the corners of the hall but to my shock there was a long queue which the invitees had to brave so they can get their chance for the photo shoot. It was now more appalling for me since; 1. the long queue was not mentioned in the invitation, and 2. we were not also informed by the people in the registration that we had to line up for the photo shoot. I spoke to a lady, the only one who was manning the photo shoot , and she told me that it only takes several seconds for each kid to get his/her picture taken so I can expect that the line will move fast. But we queued for almost three hours. It was almost 3:00 p.m. when we approached the improvised studio which the organizers set up in the other end of the hall. Some of the kids I saw who were standing in line along with their parents were already cranky and crying; some already fell asleep on the arms of their parents. I felt that both parents and kids were exploited in that event.

 After my son’s turn for the shoot, we were left clueless again on what to do next. There were not enough personnel to man the event and most, if not all, of the invitees were left to fend for themselves like getting the print-out of the picture and giving it to the judges.  It is only when I asked one of the guards that I learned that we have to wait again for our turn to hand my son’s picture to the judges and be screened; and this process of waiting and screening will take another hour or so. I can see the crowd camping outside the room where the judges are seeing the kids from where we stood. The place was in utter disorder and no one was controlling the crowd to think that were some small kids. At this point I decided that we leave the  place as I  can no longer let my kids (including my baby who was waiting outside the hall with my cousin) to wait longer and suffer. We left home not only disappointed that we didn’t meet our goal for that day but more than this, we felt we were cheated because the whole process of auditioning or casting was not what they stated in the invitation. We acted based on the information given to us.  It was our first time to join a go-see or a casting call and the reason why I let my son join is because I thought the whole process will be convenient for him.

Hence; I am writing to your office to inform you of what I consider as exploitation.  I also want to raise these other issues, in particular:

• With the expected number of kids joining the go-see, not to mention the parents or guardians who will be accompanying them, the organizers should have allotted more than one day for the event to fairly accommodate all the invitees. Also, the venue was obviously small for the expected crowd. The density of the people was heavier than what have should been allowed that in case a commotion happened, stampede is likely to follow. Worse, there were not enough seats provided for the parents and the kids. Some were already sitting on the hallway of the mall.

• The event was undermanned to properly organize, inform, and secure the public. I don’t have enough attached pictures to prove this but I can attest how a lot of people—adults and kids alike were clustered in some of the areas as they wait for their turn since the announcements were not clearly audible.

 

I hope this letter will merit appropriate actions from your end. I have no intentions of joining again the casting call but I think it's my responsibility as a parent to report such misconduct and/or poor event management especially when there are small kids involved . Should you inquire further on my complaint, you may reach me at this number __________ or email address _________.  Thank you.

 

Sincerely,

MARIE GRACE BUSTAMANTE

Concerned Parent

***

below is the only picture i was able to capture during the actual photo shoot of inigo. my son, i think it's the same with the other kids, was only given maximum of 10 seconds in front of the camera and one shot from the photographer and... that's it!  i was glad that inigo cooperated and posed and smiled. had he been like the other kids who after waiting for two hours or more for their breaks were already fussy or weren't uncooperative at all i think i would have cried. hehe.

sayang ang smile noh? :)

giving the best of both worlds? / homeschool and progressive school for inigo

i really wanted to homeschool inigo. i have shared enough reasons here why homeschooling is our choice for his early education. but never did i realize that it is really a big and daunting take especially now that i have another kid to take care of. it really takes commitment and discipline and sadly i wasn't blessed with these.

then there's the nagging issue of socialization. critics of homeschooling opined that parents who homeschool their kids deprive them of their chance to socialize with their peers and the life's lessons that go with regular schooling. honestly i succumbed to this and it was a huge factor why jude and i decided to send inigo to a preschool last school year. fortunately, a regular school worked well for him and we saw the big change in the kiddo's socialization skill.

so when the start of school year 2010-2011 was drawing near it was automatic for us to decide to enroll inigo again to another preschool, a progressive preschool to be exact, because i know, even if i wanted to homeschool inigo full-time and rely on our spur-of-the-moment learning activities, i can't. it's our child's development which is at stake.

finding a preschool is another difficult task for us. (geez... i realized nothing is really easy if it involves our kids... and if money is also taken into consideration, hehe). we wanted to stick with his old preschool in legaspi village, which is also a progressive one. but they increased their tuition for this school year and what's already high and expensive becomes more prohibitve for us. the tuition for 2-3x a week schedule is now at whopping php 50-70k for one school year. they have a right though to collect such big amount from the parents because facilities-wise the school is way above standard. but the tuition is really beyond our budget so we had no choice but to transfer inigo.

finally after many phone calls and inquiries and several visits to different schools we enrolled inigo in kids playlab preschool, which is located 3 blocks away from our current address. it's a progressive school, something i really wanted since i knew that their personalized and student-centered, no-rush-for-the-kid approach doesn't clash with my homeschooling principles. it's also important for me that at my kid's age i don't want him to be labeled and ranked among his classmates because it (whether it's favorable or not) might affect his disposition early in life. inigo by the way is attending 2x a week. in between these days i supplement his learning by discussing to him what has just been taught in their school or  any topic which he's interested to learn. i wanted him to realize that learning  may also be done beyond the four corners of their classroom. we call this moments as 'learning time' and i love it when inigo asks me if he can learn. it's like music to my ears. :)

stolen shot by jude of me (in my so drabby outfit, hehe) and inigo during one of our homeschooling sessions

inigo is now into reading. he can now read some words in his dr. seuss' green eggs and ham and hop and pop books. i thought i can defer reading to him until he's five or six years old but after learning the sounds of the letters he enthused to read. he's very good in numbers. more than rote counting one to 100, i taught him to also identify and write the numbers. the chart had been useful though inigo gets bored with charts so the tv channels, elevators, calendars were more helpful.

but it's science which inigo is very interested and eager to learn. he can name most animals and their youngs. he can discuss the solar system and name the planets according to their location from the sun. he can say something about the eruption of volcanoes and what it spew out.

i really have no idea if inigo knows less or more compared to other kids his age since i already stopped having a benchmark or a standard which he should meet. am just happy that he continuously learn and with enthusiasm.

it's enough for me now.