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By the Hospital Bed

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Last week was a tough time for our family. It was Saturday, 2am when we we had to rush Summer to the ER because of an alarmingly high fever. She undertook some tests which, later on, revealed that she had dengue. She had to be admitted right away and when I heard those words, all I could really say was "okay." The next few hours seemed to have progressed so swiftly. Next thing I knew, it was 7am, Summer had an IV on her and I was cuddling her to sleep in a cold hospital bed. Turns out, there's no aggressive way to defeat dengue. There's no cure for it. So we spent the time trying to get Read More

An Art Fiesta!

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I think many of you parents who are reading this will agree when I say that celebrating a child's birthday represents another milestone reached, not only for the child but for the parents as well. Last month, my Summer turned four. Yes, FOUR! While it's hard for me to believe it has been that long, I also feel relieved that Kayo and I have made it this far at parenting. I'm not saying that we're experts or that we've done a perfect job but I'm thankful that we've managed to develop a strong relationship with our first born and that she's healthy, undoubtedly happy and astoundingly Read More

Summer and Dylan’s Beach Party

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My little ball of sunshine, Summer, turned three last Saturday. The next day, Dylan, my nephew and Kayo's godson, also celebrated his birthday. And because these two special days fell on a long holiday weekend here in the Philippines, my in laws decided to make a family vacation out of it and take the celebration to our favorite beach in San Juan, La Union. It was a great idea! It was also something we've never done before because we usually just throw our kids' parties at home, so everybody was pretty excited about it. We put together a simple double birthday party last Saturday right at Read More

DIY Toy: Summer’s Cardboard Pizza

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We usually bring home our groceries in cardboard boxes, so I always have an abundance of them. When we don't use them for throwing trash or storing things, I use them for various craft projects.Most of the time, I end up making Summer and Emma all sorts of cardboard toys. They never last long, maybe three weeks max, even shorter if Emma has her way with it, but it's a fun, inexpensive way to encourage creative and imaginative play at home. It's also a great way to teach them how to recycle and be resourceful. Even if they break after a few days, it wouldn't matter because they don't cost a Read More

Father’s Day Surprise

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Summer and Emma surprised their Papa last Sunday by making him a set of colorful posters for Father's day. I took care of all the cutting and writing but they did the rest. It's amazing what they can come up with when you give them crayons, markers, cut out shapes, strips of washi tape and the freedom to do whatever they want.    Summer filled the posters with drawings of monsters, balloons and ten (sometimes twelve!) legged spiders, while Emma did her very best by drawing wild, scratchy lines. It was a colorful and playful mess that certainly made their Papa proud and happy! Read More

Arts & Crafts With Summer

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The past month, Summer and I have been doing crafts together. In line with my resolve to become more intentional about teaching her new things through toddler play, I have come up with fun activities to do together, and most of it (so far) are simple art projects, using things available to us at home. I even made an activity planner so I can plot out things we could do and record things we have done. It's been a lot fun and really interesting. Summer has discovered glue and now loves gluing things together. She has also learned to name different colors and is currently learning to name Read More

Bedtime Prayers

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The past week, Summer has ben waking up in the middle of the night having had bad dreams. I could tell because she would be crying and shaking, clinging tight to me and not wanting to go back to bed. This happened three nights within the last week and started when one rainy night, it thundered so loud, even I got a little scared. Kayo and I did what we could to comfort her but it would take some time before she could calm down. It was difficult because her loud cries would wake Emma and put her in a foul mood too. We would sing to Summer, pray aloud for her and just stay up with her until she Read More

Summer Paints

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Every time Summer sees me painting, she gets excited and urgently asks for her "pepper (paper), bash (brush) and cowers (colours)." I used to let her use my very old watercolor set until her Ninang gave her an Art Attack kiddie set for her birthday last month. She loves it. She enjoys using the paint brush like Mommy and -- as expected of a two year old -- loves getting the paint all over her body. At first, I was hesitant about letting her play with paint at such a young age because of Summer's mess-making capabilities, with which I am ever so familiar. But then I realized, it's what she sees Read More

Summer’s Safari Party

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"Wayon, zeebor, jaff, ippo…(Lion, zebra, giraffe, hippo…)" That's Summer naming her favorite animals. She's been really into animals and so when it was time for me and Kayo to plan her second birthday party, it was easy to come up with a theme we knew she'd love. Our little "Summer's Safari" party was last Sunday, August the 25th, at my parents-in-law's warm and lovely home. Thankfully, despite a little rain, it turned out well and most of the people we invited made it safe and dry. Summer seemed to have enjoyed a lot herself and I was very pleased with the outcome. The truth is that I had Read More

Summer Turns 2

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I'm so proud of Summer. She surprised Nica and me when she blew out her birthday candle all on her own, on the first try! And I do mean FIRST. We kept on talking about how we wanted to teach her how to do it and practice and all that, but we just never got around to it. Yet somehow, she just knew what to do at the end of singing "Happy Birthday." This kid always amazes me with how smart she is. We spent the day together as a family. It's pretty cool how the sun came out and shone for most of the time we spent outdoors. And while I did have some time sensitive work to do, we pretty much just Read More