Top 1!

The school year is over! I can finally get to sleep in during weekdays! Rejoice!
But the school year isn't all about me. For I am not the student. I am the student's mother. And I can happily share that I am very proud of our student daughter. For she topped her class once more! She also did during the first grading period, second grading period, third grading period and of course the fourth grading summary.



The only sad thing about it was hubs was unable to attend the recognition day for he couldn't get out of an important training session. But over all we were all ecstatic about V's achievement.

Iceberg & Red leaf lettuce

Yesterday I blogged about the thousand island dressing I made. Now I'm sharing V's reaction to the vegetable salad.
But first a little background sharing.
Whenever we have fried food I try to prepare vegetable salad to balance things out. So when V came to be a part of our family it wasn't long before she had a taste of it. Of course being a little girl with no inkling as to what a vegetable salad is her reaction to it was both funny and endearing. She refused to taste it because "hindi luto ang gulay." An explanation was made and she hesistantly ate it. Slowly. Ever so slowly.
Fast forward to yesterday.
In my vegetable salad I usually use iceberg lettuce as it's more commonly available in the grocery. But this time around I added another variety of lettuce. Red Leaf lettuce.

So there we were all seated at the dining table when V blurted out, "mommy nasunog mo yata ang gulay?"
We adults looked at each other and laughed. Kids say the darnedest things!

something sad, something good

Hubs aunt (V's real grandma) died last week, a day before his birthday. We were planning on an out of town beach trip for the family to celebrate his birthday but our plans had to take a backseat because of the sad incident.
V knows that her grandma is sick so she was kinda expecting this to happen. According to her, lola will lose her hair and eventually die. That's what she said when I talked to her about grandma's disease. Evidently the TV is a powerful media as she compared her lola to lola Getz (from the soap Tayong Dalawa). When we called on her for "the talk" she was steeling herself already. She knows. She did not shed any tears but she was quiet the whole day.
So last week was spent commuting between Laguna (where MIL lives) and Muntinlupa (where V's lola's wake was).
The good thing that came out of that week was V got to spend time with her sisters and brother.

field trip IT

V's school field trip will be held before the month ends. They were supposedly going to Malacanang Museum during one of their stop-overs but this was ditched because apparently the museum is closed to the public as it is being used as packing station for the relief goods for victims of Ondoy and Pepeng.

Here is the revised itinerary for their trip:
U.P. Puppet Show
Philippine Aircraft Museum
Lunch at Market Market
Tiendesitas, Fun Ranch and Avilon Zoo
Early Dinner at Gateway Mall

This is V's first time to experience a school field trip. Hope she'll have a good time.

still #1

I hoped that V makes it to the top 3 but she outdid my expectations and is still top 1! Yey!
I'm one proud mama jumping for joy while dancing jiggity jiggity yeba with my hand up in the air! (yikes! scary scene!)

periodical exam week

Exam week is here once again. I'm a hands-on mom when it comes to V's schooling. No I do not make her assignments for her. I believe that she should make that on her own. But I painstakingly go through her notes with her. I give her oral exams which she has trouble in. And spend time making written practice exams for her which she excels in. Last time my efforts paid off for V topped her class. This grading period my expectations are high but I also know that I should not expect too much from her. Besides during hubs vacation I was too busy and hardly had time for V's daily assignment review. Well, I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that she'll at least make it to the top 3.

bruising in children

Eversince V came to be a part of our family I've noticed occassional bruises on her legs. I shrugged it off. But the past weeks the bruises have increased. When previously there were 1-2 on each leg now there are 2-3. I didn't think it would merit a doctor's appointment so I just bought a multivitamins with high iron content. I left it at that because aren't children more prone to bruising because of playing/roughousing/bumping into things? But just this afternoon I noticed that V had a single bruise on her arm too. Just this one bruise but it made me go online to learn more about bruises.
And I found out from Dr. Geoffrey Allen of Children's Memorial Hospital that anemia is the most common blood disorder in children. Children become anemic when their bodies are unable to make red blood cells fast enough to replace those that are broken normally, or if their red blood cells are either being broken down faster than normal or are being lost through bleeding. The two most frequent cause of anemia in children are low iron levels and frequent infections.
Did you know that most children are iron deficient? Yes they are. Apparently iron in their diet is not enough for their growing bodies needs. (--> cause #1 check) But taking iron supplements or a change in food intake is enough to treat it.
Now since V started going to school she became more sickly. It is not unusual for her to go home with colds which lasts for a few days and then goes away. (I have previously complained to her teacher about the rate of contamination in class. When a kid gets sick the virus spreads like wildfire.) --> cause #2 check
But is V's bruising a cause for alarm?
These are the things to consider:
- severity
- location - bruising in the trunk and upper arms are not normal
- onset - if the bruising occurs that is not associated with physical activity
- other symptoms - if the bruising occurs with nose bleeding, gum bleeding, etc.
With these information I conclude that V's bruising is "normal" because she has low iron level and is frequently sick. Her multivitamins with iron supplement is still more than half full so I can't really say if it has taken effect. If in a few weeks the situation hasn't improved then I will take her to the doctor to have her checked.

V tops her class!

At first I had to go through the taxing reviews, then came the test scores and now that the grades have been tallied the ranking is announced. V topped her class! Yahoo!!!
This weekend we are celebrating her birthday and her achievement.
Double Yey!

the scores are in

After the gruelling week of review for V's periodical exam, the results are finally in. And she passed with flying colors! I'm so happy! She had a perfect score for Civics! And an almost perfect score in Science and Filipino. Yup, just one wrong answer in these 2 subjects. Math would have been perfect too had it not been for one part of the exam. She got confused as to the odd and even numbers. She mixed it up and so everything was wrong. But all other answers except for these were correct. Sayang talaga, perfect na naman sana.

surviving V's periodical exam

I survived!...The first grading periodical exam of Vivian! So on Friday afternoon we all went out to celebrate. Picnic sa Good Shepherd (para ka-join si Tatay). I ordered take-out from McDonald's at dahil ako ang nagcecelebrate ang kinain ko ay ang Big Mac meal. Akala nyo si V ang magcecelebrate? Hindi ah! It's me who is celebrating kase nasurvive ko ang pagtuturo sa kanya for the first grading period! Hay! Ang hirap kaya ng pinagdaanan ko! Feeling ko I deserve a medal dahil sa na-experience ko the past months.
Now the agony of waiting for the exam results. Sana naman pasado sya!

saturday classes

It's a saturday and I'm up bright and early. Why? Because of school! V has makeup classes today because they didn't have classes for 2 days last week. (grumble rumble) Whatever happened to sleeping late during weekends?

mommy thoughts from doris day

Wrinkles are hereditary. Parents get them from their children.
-Doris Day

and the doctor said...

I finally brought V to the pediatrician. She started getting sick thursday afternoon. I had to stay up all night because she was so hot already. I was thinking of bringing her to the doctor when morning comes. But by friday morning she felt better already. Like she didn't get sick at all. So the trip to the doctor was cancelled. But before the day ended she was feverish again. I spent another sleepless night by her bedside. At the back of my mind I was thinking of dengue. But what I really suspected was tonsilitis for V kept on complaining about difficulty in swallowing.
So anyways, off to the pedia we go. V was quiet all throughtout our travel. I was thinking that she must really be feeling bad for V rarely shuts up. Turns out, she did feel bad but the reason for her sudden clamming up was because she was nervous. She confessed that this is her first time to go see the doctor. Her parents (the one before us) just took care of her at home whenever she got sick. And since her secret is out she begun asking questions...what is that thing that the secretary stuck up her armpit? What does it do? What will the doctor do when she sees me? What will happen inside the room? etc,etc...I had a lot of explaining to do.
At last after waiting for a few hours our turn finally came. The doctor interviewed and examined V. She even got to lie down the examination table. Then she received some lollipops (to be eaten when she feels better) for being a good girl. And the doctor's verdict: tonsilitis.

PTA meeting at ang pagsugod

I survived my first Parents-Teachers Association meeting! At eto pa ha di lang nagsurvive kundi naiboto pang officer! hehe.. kung alam lang nila...
During the meeting we found out na more than the said number of students per class pala ang mga grade 1. So syempre affected ako dito. Grade 1 si V eh. 22 na sila per class. Madami na yun ha! Eh sa mga early enrollees sabi 15 lang daw. Ako naman when I enrolled V sabi 15-20 daw. Pero now 22 na at may parating pa. Aba di naman pwede yan. Kailangan makibaka. I proposed to make a letter to the administrator about it. Pero na-hyper yata ang mga kapwa ko magulang at gusto kausapin agad si admin.. Ayun after the meeting go kami agad sa opisina. Sugod mga mommies!
So ang siste, di na kailangan pa ng complaint letter, maghahire na lang ng additional teacher and yung original na 2 classes for the Grade 1 mahahati into 3. Ayos! Mas matututukan ang aming chikiting.

classes start tomorrow!

Tomorrow is V's first day of school! Yey! Hubs and I are both excited to see her go to school. Only thing is her classes starts at 7:40 and the school bus said they'll pick her up at 6:00 A.M. tomorrow. Too early! Of course I had to speak up. They said that since it's the first day of school they don't have a final route to follow in picking up the kids so they said it's better to be prepared early. But goodness me I still think it's too early! So if the month passes and nothing changes I'm taking her off the school bus and finding myself another one.