Friday, March 27, 2015

PLDT HOME + Disney = Fun for my kids!

This post is brought to you by PLDT Home.

Two of my favorite things just got together! Disney and PLDT HOME (which is the same company as that of my mobile services provider, Smart) are now partners! 

What does this mean???

Well, the new partnership means PLDT HOME subscribers can now enjoy over 300 online games, hundreds of e-books, even TV shows, without price components. All moms and dads have to do is click the Disney widget on their Telpad.

My kids and I were at the special press conference to announce this wonderful team-up. We had a yummy lunch at Cravings Shangri-la Plaza. Our kids (who came as adorable princes and princesses!) enjoyed the fun activities PLDT HOME prepared (face painting! balloon sculptures!), then we all trooped to the movie theater for an exclusive screening of the live action retelling of the best fairy tale ever, Cinderella

Prince Piero!
Waiting for the presscon to start.
A princess introduces #DisneyOnTelpad experience.
After the presscon, we got our tickets to the exclusive screening of Cinderella!

Thursday, March 26, 2015

The story of my short hair

Once upon a time, up to about last month, I had long hair. I don't know what it is about getting pregnant, but I had glorious hair. Nice and thicker than my usual fine and thin hair. Then you give birth and they all fall out haha But for the times I was pregnant with my second and third babies, I grew my hair long for the first time ever because my hair held on to my scalp.


Then, as I said, postpartum hair fall happened. So I decided I needed to cut my hair short again. Just a bob really, which is trendy with all the It girls.


Just my luck, Franck Provost has a new stylist and I was offered a free haircut. So I went happily along. While she created a really stylish bob, it wasn't suited to my mom lifestyle. Instead of the simple, fuss-free bob that I wanted, she made many tiny layers. For it to look amazing, I had to spend 30 minutes styling it to look like this:


If I don't do that (and as a mom of three babies, I don't have the time to do that!), this is what it looks like:

Eww.

So after two weeks of my strange bob, I went to Basement Salon and asked for a pixie cut like this:


Yes, that's me in 2008. But the stylist said we should go into pixie land gently so she chopped off my hair to a really short bob like this:

The hair I've sported since high school!

And now here's what people tell me:

"Oh, a very short cut! Is your marriage okay?"
"What a big change! Is anything big happening in your life?"
"Wow, how does it feel? You've never gone short before."

Wait. What?

First, unlike most women, my hair is not a barometer of the state of my love life. I cut my hair when I'm tired of it. I color it when I feel bored. It's hair. It's just hair. It grows back! So I like playing with it! Plus my husband likes it when I play with my hair. He says it's like having a new girl every time I come home looking different!

Second, I have actually always had short hair. Observe my hair while pregnant with Vito in 2010.


I dunno about you but those two photos look like I have short hair. Hindi siya Photoshop, promise!

I only grew my hair long three years ago, because one day I wore hair extensions and thought, "Wow, I look good with long hair!" And, like I said, pregnancy (I'm pregnant with my second baby here) made my hair nice. 


Yes, that's hair extensions! They looked so good on me! So I grew my hair loooong for the first time in my history. But after three years of long hair, I am tired of it. Masyadong maarte. Blow dry, product, ang tagal pa pag i-dye! Four hours akong nakaupo sa salon! Who has the time?!

So I cut my hair short. That's all there is to it.

It's so crazy to talk to people who say, "But you've never had short hair before!" I mean, how does one respond to that? Even though I show them pictures of me with short hair, they still insist I've always had long hair. May picture na nga! Ano pa kailangan niyo? Labo.

Anyway, this is why my hair is short: A stylist gave me a cut that didn't suit my lifestyle so I had it cut shorter so it's wash and go. The end. Wag na gawan ng ibang storya utang na loob lang! Thanks!


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Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Progress Pre-School Gold on multiple intelligences (plus, a giveaway!)

This post is brought to you by Progress Pre-School Gold.

When I was a preschool teacher lifetimes ago, I had the great privilege to teach at Ingenium School in Marikina. In 1999, Ingenium started as a preschool. Now it teaches kids up to high school level! I was one of the first of four teachers. It was a new kind of school, a multiple intelligences school. I've never heard of anything like it. But I truly saw how each child we taught blossomed because we taught them according to their strengths and interests, or multiple intelligence.

There are various forms of intelligence: brain, body, and people. I remember one student, J**i, who transferred to Ingenium because his teachers in his previous preschool said he had behavioral problems. We believe he was just bored! We observed him for a couple of weeks and noticed he just couldn't sit down, making it difficult for him (and us teachers) to learn anything! 

Finally, one morning, I noticed he was running around the school. I yelled to him as he ran past, "One!" and he yelled back, "One!" When he passed me again, I yelled, "Two!" and he shouted back, "Two!" We did this counting with every lap. By the time he was tired, he had learned counting 1-20. Yes, he had a lot of energy! J**I is definitely body smart. That means he learns faster and better if he isn't sitting down. He has to be moving! 

This multiple intelligences applied to the other kids. And, fast forward to now, I'm happy that I can apply it to my kids, too! For example, my second child, Iñigo, learns fastest through music. He learned his alphabet and numbers and shapes and colors and words simply by us singing them to him. We had tried that with his older brother, Vito, and Vito just wasn't interested. What Vito liked to do was visual play. He liked to sit with an iPad or watch TV or draw with paint and crayons. For him to learn, he has to see it unfolding before his eyes. 

Vito loves visual stimulation.
Iñigo loves to learn through song and dance.
They both love learning via play!

Of course, parental involvement and encouragement are also huge factors in giving our children an edge with multiple intelligence. For example, a parent must discern what his child's intelligence is. In Vito's case, for example, the iPad works. It doesn't help Iñigo much unless he plays with an app that has a lot of music. But if a parent can't see beyond what traditional education says, then he or she'll just think, "Oh, all iPads are bad!" or "Something must be wrong with my kid because he doesn't like music!" or "Why is my kid so makulit and malikot? He must be naughty!"