Master chef Javo and school baon

Javo continues to enjoy school. He looks forward to going to his "other" school--OLL--located near the house but farther than Alres (his school the past year). He enjoys his time with Teacher Osam (Osang) and his friends and classmates.

OLL has made school transitioning easy for the young ones and the first time students by having them come in on a staggered basis and on short time spans for the first two weeks. Today was the first time he had snack time. He goes to school 11am-130pm but had class till 1pm today. So snack is lunch...

What to bring though. Javo has always had his own sense of taste. We survived on furikake (the Japanese rice toppings) and nori on rice for the first few years. He then moved on to peanut butter as a constant fallback (peanut butter with rice and olive oil). He would sometimes eat galunggong complete with its head or barbecue if his taste buds wanted them.

Worried about his eating habits and his being way underweight, I would ask my Tita Sani Orbeta for advise on what to give. She said as long as he ate something, was active and wasn't losing weight he was fine. She also said that kids love soft food so rice with soup--he would sometimes take that. Although clear soup is more to his liking. He would rather eat vegetables than meat. I recently discovered that bola-bola of miswa is fine too.

He is currently into bread toast with butter, sugar and syrup. That is one of his favorites and has replaced peanut butter and furikake as a constant. His food repertoire has increased to include hotdog, bacon, pancake, chocnut, and chocolate cake. Chicken is also on his list--boiled and not fried. He also likes shabu-shabu.

Going back to baon, I asked him what he wanted to bring for baon today. He said rice, butter, olive oil and peanuts. Peanuts! I didn't have those around. There was casoy so I looked for that. Unfortunately it could not be found. Since he likes parmesan cheese, I put that instead. I had him try it before finally closing the container to make sure he would eat it. "Sawap mommy!" was my reaction to the concoction. After preparing that we found the casoy so he had rice, butter, olive oil, parmesan cheese, and casoy for baon today.

Having to deal with his eating habits, I read some books on picky eaters. They all said not to worry too much as kids know how much food they can take. My doctors also advised speech therapy as his oral development may also be part of the cause for his eating habits.

My Javo also refuses to be called pare or mister or any other name. He will only answer to Javo except when you call him Master Chef Javo. Maybe his taste buds will lead him somewhere after all.

Looking for Marla

In an effort to understand myself, my reactions to situations, my relationship with my child, my husband and the rest of the world, I have discovered that we develop personas that help us cope with life. I found this out through the various personal transformation workshops I have been attending since 2005.

This persona appeared while we were children, growing up in an adult world and life would sometimes bring us situations which we could not understand. It appeared to help us cope with the situations that come our way. I discovered that I deal with life by disappearing or hiding from what is happening around me.

This hiding comes in the form of denial of talents, of procrastinating when I am faced with a nasty situation, and anxiety when surrounded by a room full of strangers among many others.

Every once in a while though, this Marla who was "born to shine a light on the world" (paraphrased from Marianne Williamson's words) insists on being noticed. She comes out when I face my fears head on and come out triumphant. She appeared when I lived in Spain for a year. She appears each time I agree to speak in front of an audience.

She is here now when I finally acknowledged that writing is my Godgiven talent and one way for me to shine a light in the world. I always thought that one had to be visual to be creative and so I always complained of my inability to draw, to do crafts, to imagine pictures in my head the way others would.

Marla the writer has been waiting to be acknowledged. She pushed her way out today by insisting on writing about her journey of discovery. I finally acknowledge that writing is my gift. That it was given to me together with my ability to dissect my inner life and my willingness to share of my journey with others. This is my way of letting my light show.

It is an exciting journey, one worth taking and living.

Javo goes to school

Javo turned four years old last April--with that comes another milestone--the beginning of school. Although he has been going to "school" this past year with his speech and occupational therapists, this is his first year in formal school.

When I first brought him to the school of our choice last April, his face held a mix of emotions. Excitement at the thought of going to a new school and anxiety at the thought of being left alone. I had informed him that we would take him to school and then pick him up when he was done--that we would not wait in school.

Seeing his reaction, I found various ways to introduce to him the concept of school--through the children's books at home on going to school and pointing out how all his cousins went to school by themselves. I would talk to him about school every now and then and would get the same reaction--excitement and anxiety.

The week before classes began, I still had the same reaction from him. But suddenly a few days before we started he told me, "I will go to school by myself. No papi and no mommy." I was so happy about that attitude reversal but was still prepared to stay in case he changed his mind.

The day of school arrived. He could not wait till his class began and so he was ready at 8am for his 11am class. I told him that we would bring him in that day because his bag was heavy with the school requirements. We ate a heavy merienda at 10am and left for school at 1030am. True enough, after a few minutes in the school premises and trying the different playground equipment, he bids us goodbye.

What is a mom to do except go away as requested. So Martin and I left him in the capable hands of his teacher. I left happy that he had chosen to be left on his own and felt like crying because he was growing up so fast. My independent toddler is now an independent preschooler.

We went back to school early so that we would be there when his class came out. They came out in a straight line single file. My boy was all smiles and clearly enjoyed his first day in school! This is just the beginning of what I hope would be a great experience for him.

Loosening up and bath time

We brought Javo to watch Kung Fu Panda 2 in the big screen recently. Aside from the entertainment value to kids of all ages, it had very many messages for those on the road to personal transformation.

Javo enjoyed it immensely and amidst WOWs and OOOHHHs from him, mom had her own revelations and enjoyed the same movie in a different way. I finally got loosening up and just in time too--for our Mommy-Javo ten day bonding time. I finally got enjoying his company and our differences.

Among the many different areas where we have our differences is during bath time. I used to have such a difficult time getting him in there because I wanted to finish the bath fast and I wanted to stay dry. Unfortunately that route meant a lot of whining and cajoling and a whole lot of delaying tactics. I finally get that he just enjoys having fun so now I bring a whole lot of toys for bath time and most of the time end up getting drenched but at least my objective of a bath is reached and we are both happy.