Charity Work

The little girl (and mum) spent a few days to clean up her room and along the way sorted out several stuff including her toys. Since toy storage boxes were already bulging at the lids with too many toys, the little girl (with some coaxing) agreed to donate some of her less-played-with toys to charity. They'd already done this exercise once back in Manila (thru CRIBS) and with so much charity-stuff going on at school the concept isn't new to her. The little girl dropped off her big bag of toys in the big donation box and wished whoever got it had as much fun as she had (yeah, seriously, she said that).

Our Angel in Heaven

There's a reason behind it. They say.

I love my wife. For her inner strength. For mourning the way she does. For finding shards of light as easily as she does clouds of grey. Ability to push past her fears... and the tears For being every bit beautiful through all of it. Keeping faith in God and his plan. Keeping sane throughout. Trying to move on.

Trying to be strong for my family but really, I get my strength from them. My wife and I count ourselves lucky we have our not-so-little girl around to cheer us up - more so, at the most inappropriate moments - which just makes it the more hilarious and we love her dearly for that.

Our family has grown. We are now blessed with our own beloved little angel, tuldok. We love you baby.

My 1st Week of Vacation by Vivian Undag

Even if it's holiday we had an agreement to practice and continue all the lessons taught in school. Today is cursive writing and I instructed her to compose about the things we did last week.

"My First Week of Vacation"
When me and my mum were making puppets we had so much fun
and I liked my horse puppets. My mum helped me to sort my clothes
some didn't fit and some did fit. Next I sorted my toys and gave some
to charity. Then when mummy went to the shoe cabinet she cleaned up
my shoes and I helped her. My first week of vacation is tiring.

Note: Please click picture to enlarge

3rd milk tooth

Another temporary lower tooth fell today. Good news is the permanent tooth is coming out.

Movie time: Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and others

The latest movie we watched last thursday was Ice Age 3, I asked my daughter to write something about it...

"When me and my mum and dad went to watch Ice Age
it was so funny and there's dinosaurs under the ice.
Then a big T-rex saved them from a big dinosaur. I wanted to
watch it again the end."

Some more movies we watched that were truly entertaining.....
June 24, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
June 11, Up
May 30, Night At The Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

Now, we are excited for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince!

Mufti Day - End of Year 1

The little girl is moving up. Wednesday (July 1) was BSM's last day of school and its summer vacation out here. Some families I hear are going out to cooler climates. A lot are sticking around Muscat also...much like us. We'll probably travel a little bit but nothing definite yet...taking it easy for tuldok.

So ends Year 1...Year 2 starts in a couple of months. Said the usual farewells and thank-you(s) to her Class 1-EB (Teacher Ellman-Brown) classmates and teachers. The school year really zinged by so fast. Some of her friends have left (moved to other countries and not coming back next school year), some have moved to neighboring schools (moved to ABA). This time last year she was sad school was over. This year she's happily looking forward to summer break. No more waking up early for school...and that goes great for the dad too!! :D

That night we had dinner out at Trader Vic's to celebrate. According to Mrs. EB's reviews throughout, she had a wonderful year and really has been doing well in her school work. She's been more focused (but still has some room for improvement - hehe), her reading (and comprehension) have developed a lot more, plus her math and spelling quizes are almost always perfect. The little girl had her favorite Ebi Tempura and the highlight of the evening was 'burning banana' - flambe. Congratulations Vivian!


sidenote: Several of her classmates have been moving out of BSM into ABA since last year...all boys. I got to chat with one of the parent's recently and he was moving his boy bcoz BSM wasn't working out for his kid. That ABA (American-British-Academy) was more adaptive in its teaching approach to kids who had a different learning pace from the rest. Not the first time we've heard this but the little girl seems to be doing ok so no fret, at least for her. ABA is actually cheaper (I hear) but its darn hard to get in.

World meet tuldok!

The wife suddenly IMs me one fine afternoon and says 'daddee...can you buy pregnancy tests pls?' Heart jumps, deep breath, played it cool and said, 'Sure. How many?' We'd gone through this same exercise about a year or so ago and I've learned not to get my hopes up too much. What I didn't know was...she had already chucked off a few that afternoon and had been pumping large amounts of fluids into her system in anticipation of these 'revelation' sticks I'd brought home. She gets the stick, hits the bathroom and comes out (in less than the prescribed time) and shows me... the plus sign. Then she proceeds to tell me its actually the third test today already and shows me the other two in the bin.

Fast forward two weeks, 3 ultrasounds, a blood test, a urine test, two ob-gynes and a german-measle-scare...and tada))))...we have a heartbeat!! Tuldok - as we've endearingly christened him - is a temporary name of course until we decide on a new one...it'd probably come in time for his or her 23rd birthday. The name caught on during the first ultrasound and as one would expect five weeks in, it was simply ...a dot.

The little girl was with us during the second ultrasound. So, tuldok and bilog have met already.

measles shmeasles

I decided to work on something until a pretty late hour one night and just as I was about to hit the bed, I heard whimpering. The little-girl was sitting up, a bit weepy, a very sore throat and having a 39.1 temp. The panic begins.

Past weeks, there had been several cases of German Measles (presumed) and each of the little-girl's classmates were getting hit one by one. We thought she'd already outlasted this strain but apparently not...and with the wife's condition it was a very risky predicament.

Tried to get her to the doctor but her regular pedia was out of the country and I couldn't get around work. As the day progressed, the rashes started coming out and we were really on the assumption it was German Measles already. I shouldn't have left them alone as the wife really had to be physically away from the little girl but I just had no choice. In any case, went back home as soon as I could, got an appointment for the girl with a different doc and got the news we'd been hoping for. It wasn't measles... it was pharyngitis and apparently, the rashes were a normal symptom. Whew!!! The little-girl was ecstatic - 'Yey! I don't have to stay away from mommy!'

Big Star

With the school year winding down, this may be the last one for now. They had story-writing tasks today and apparently she did very well. Looking forward to reading it soon. Woohoo!

Ballet End of Year

Another ballet year ends. The plan was supposed to be a recital much like last year's but I think something misfired and the kids ended up with a quick-and-easy moving up day. You could tell from their faces, the kids were really concentrating and giving their best. Teacher Alena made sure everybody was attentive and performing well in front of the parents. After the hour-long program, teacher started to call the girls one by one and handed out their certificates. The little-girl did well and was looking forward to ballet again next year!