Siblings and Health

During my last hospital "guard duty," I was totally astounded that the patient was not visited by siblings. He has 6 siblings in all, 4 brothers and 2 sisters. Okay fine, so 1 was in another country. So there were 5 more siblings left. 13 yo later told me 1 sister did drop in, I just wasn't there. But hell, that was still 1 out of 5.

What's the deal with that? I told my sister, I can't imagine that if that happened to you, I won't even drop by. I can't imagine dropping by just once, even. In my head, it's standard that if a sibling gets sick, you drop "generally everything" to be there. If you have office work, fine, but you're generally there everyday...

"Maybe they're busy..." she said.

Maybe, I said. Then I go nah...

"maybe they just don't like him."

Hahaha, that I can believe.


So I formed a long sermon in my head for the 2 boys about being concerned about one another's health.

In the future, when you're adults, when 1 of you is sick, I INSIST that the other be there. If you don't I will hold a rally! a picket! in your face. If I'm dead I will come back from the grave to haunt you.

If one of you notice that the other brother has extremely risky health behavior, such as being alcoholic or drug addict (they understand this already) you have my blessing to butt into the other's life and impose extreme measures.

The 2 boys were pretty quiet as I expounded on looking in on each other, watching out for each other's health. One was quietly playing his pc game, and the other quietly watching tv with the volume down low.



Dang. I'm talking to my hand again.

Oh well. Again, I'm counting on osmosis from hearing environmental noise.

You Never Really Get Over Losing -- a Real Dad

Alert - a very boring entry indeed. Diary material, not blog type.



It's my dad's birthday. I miss him so baaad. He became a perma-vacationer to another spiritual plane almost 5 years ago. I realized i've been thinking about him almost everyday the past few weeks. I don't know why. I guess I just really miss him.

I usually like to put on a festive mode whenever it's his birthday. He loved christmas traditions, so for several years now the boys and I set up the tree on his birthday after we blow some candles and have cake.

But today I don't know why I'm so sad... Tears have been streaming down my eyes on the way home from my kid's school (but the rest of me is not crying, thankfully.) Pops would have been so proud of 13yo. Yesterday the kid brought home 2 awards, one for directing the batch video and another for winning the literature quiz bee. and today was recognition day, he was top 2 in class.

but the tears just kept leaking. i went to the mall to get him, not cake this year, but a pastry named napoleones (His name was Napoleon so I get a kick out of it). Ill plug some candles on it later. Good thing I'm wearing my fake glasses so the public doesn't fathom the crazyass lady leaking her eyes to the max.

Now I got home, and the family yahoogroups remembers him and now I'm crying for real. Of course, with poise. Pops never really liked crying, so I guess I owe it that much to him to at least leak my eyes with poise.


Stuff my dad loved and did:

1) He loved jellybeans, orange swits, kalamay antipolo, lechon! of course, and more food food food. He loved to eat. Thus he died from illnesses that can be gotten from eating

2) He loved cars.

3) He loved to laugh. This is where I got my macabre laughing from (have i mentioned the laughing got me in trouble with sensitive shitcrazy bitches several times already). I swear, the guy invented "LOL"

4) He loved action movies. We grew up feeling Jackie Chan, Samo Hung, Sean Connery, Chuck Norris were dear friends. He even watched those japanese kiddie action shows, like shaider, bioman, etc.

5) He loved baseball. He was part of the little league then. Baseball isn't played too much here for several decades now.

6) He loved my mom, but had a weird, stoic way of showing it. But I know it's very deep.

7) He loved to bring us treats. It's his way of showing he thought of us through the day. He's so good, cellphones weren't in then, I would just repeat in my head "Pops, bring home ice cream. Bring home ice cream..." and when he got home, he has ice cream. Yeah, he's THAT good.

8) He was a soccer dad even if we didn't play soccer, haha. He patiently played "schoolbus" with all of our activities. he also made it a point to ask if i was interested to watch those teenyteen concerts (like the return of menudo... eew) even if im sure being around teeners horrified him.

9) He did lose his temper once in a while, and if he did, it was endearing. Like his roadrage consists of stopping in your face and shouting "OOOng-goyyy!" ("monkey!" instead of the common gutter language, like the tagalog translation of your mom's a whore. nope, he's not like that). So even if you're pissed off, you can't help but laugh. Or, when he saw a thief snatch a lady's bag he tried to run over the thief with the car. stuff like that.

10) He was very understanding of human nature... and had a lot patience. Instead of hacking some gallivanting son-in-law to pieces, he calmly told the freak "Even if you and your wife have problems, watch out for/ visit your daughter. She needs you."

He didn't graduate from college, but he's classier than all the highly educated creeps that lead this country.



I miss him. When parents go, you never really get over it. I generally don't use superlatives, but Never is very accurate for me in this sense.

Well, even if he went, his life never really ended. I still catch glimpses of him. I see him in my sons, when they're all happy, rowdy and LOL-ing. I see him in my mom. I see him in my sibs, especially in cases when they're all kooky, or selfless.

Sometimes, I see him in myself. Especially when I look at my sons, and see them through his eyes.

Yes, he's still very much around.

Making Beds

I'm pretty impressed that the Obamas are fully intending for their daughters to make their own beds. More so for their plans to make the White House into a GreenHouse (make it more energy-efficient, that is). Whoot!

Just goes to show how much of regular folks the Obamas are. I lurv eet!

But really, if us mommybloggers will also move in to the White-Green House I won't be surprised if we'll do the same. At least, I will. Why will I miss the chance to torture my boys less ;-)

I do not believe in handing out chores as punishment. Chores should be part of everyday life. But I can't help but laugh as imagine, if I were in the White bHouse, and the boys get real bad, a possible punishment would be to "Clean the entire house!" I think that'll pretty much bring their tongues out at the end of punishment day.

Kiddie books for mom

I try to force myself to read books every now and then. Yeah, the real ones, with paper and all - Info v.1.0

When life gets too hectic, a year or two can easily pass by 'til I notice I haven't read anything at all! So I try to be more conscious about it. I usually read non-fiction books, but recently these have come up.

On my reading list now

1. Monkey - A Journey to the West. A Chinese classic with profound reflections on human nature and the universe. But it's something kids love because it's all about this naughty hero. A monkey that fights and does magic. I love this translation! Understandable in this planet.

But I'm not yet done because I skipped to....


2. Twilight Done with it already. *Hides face* Yuh-uh. Guilty!...

...of hitching with the bandwagon. What the hey, movie's coming out and I intend to watch because the kid playing Cedric Diggory is there. Nyum!

For me, it's no biggie. Just some Sweet Dreams-y stuff... with no kissing! Raging hormones mistaken for love, same-same. No diff with Sweet Dreams.

I wonder if kids these days read Sweet Dreams books?... Or Sweet Valley Twins/ High/ Nursing Home coming soon, i bet.


On Right Now:
3. George's Secret Key to the Universe I got this for 13year old for his bday. I got it for him mainly because it was written by THE Stephen Hawking. Yep, more on celebrity appeal. Secondary reason because it's on planets and black holes and astronomy with its physics (please don't tell him that it's only secondary, hehe)

I started it last night, so far I LURV EET!!!
Sorry Monkey, kid streaking through the cosmic universe comes 1st before you.


WHY THE HELL AM I READING CHILDREN'S BOOKS???? Ugh. I so need adult companionship.

Poked eyes and giant sharpeners

Yesterday, I was blissfully looking forward to a quiet day of work here in the house. Had a lot of catching up to do.

Phone rings at 7:30 am. It was 8-year old's teacher, who told me 8yo tripped while horsing around with his classmates and landed his eye on the table's corner. WTFonk???

So I went to school and found him looking like a boxer with a busted eye. This is the son who refuses to have a haircut because he feels shorter hair uglifies him, even though the hair cut off was 3mm and doesn't really change anything. So I imagine he's more concerned with what happens to his face.

He said he didn't feel dizzy after or nauseous, or puke-y, much to my relief.

Me I'm usually more laid back with accidents, but hey, the head is the head. Plus I was concerned that a major part of the eye may have been damaged so off to the doc we went. There were no ophthalmologists that morning so I picked a kid neurologist instead. We waited a while for the doc to come so we just goofed around in the waiting area and laughed at the silliest things we can think of.

He had his big hankie over his face like a veil because he was very conscious of how he looked like. Suddenly he blurted out "I'm a Golden Bride..." (Golden Bride is a tv show that we don't watch, but he sees the commercial) and I reflexively blurted "Anak, that's so gay." and he laughed and laughed. Dang. This is what happens when a fag-hag raises a young boy.

He was recommended to get a ct-scan, for good measure.

8 year old felt he was on a field trip when he saw the CT-scanner. The 8year old fonker tried stifling giggles as the contraption moved him towards the big hole at the middle. "See anak, you're a giant pencil going inside the giant sharpener. And I pretend to crank in the air "And I'm gonna sharpen your head offfff."

When the results came, everything was ok. No fractures. Just swollen eye balls.

Still lucky. Teynks God.



ALERT: When your child bumps the head/ pokes the eye:

Watch out for
- dizziness
- vomiting
- nausea
- unconsciousness

Don't pry open the eye. Just bring immediately to the doctor and let the doctor do the checking.

Parental Nagging to be Geeky?

In my gallant quest of wanting the kids to be prepared for modern day living, guess what I'm baiting them to do now?

CSS literacy? (and later, the nastier brothers and sisters of html ek2 and the like. for now, this should do....)

Never, in my wildest dreams, have I ever put this in my looong mental to-do-slash-to-teach-slash-to-encourage my children to do.

Groan... doesn't the torture ever end? For me and them.

Well, I noticed how many young people are easily/ peanutly/ chickenfeedly doing templates and skins for blogger, wordpress, multiply, friendster, and other social networking thingys. With no effort at all. Better that the boys learn now, while their gut feels are damn gewd.

As parents, we have to accept that these thingys on the net are part of daily life... and we have to accept it is part of what makes our children complete. Knowledge about it then, methinks, should be encouraged. The scarier part is that we parents should also know even a little about it. Ew. But we might get exiled to Jurassic Park if we don't.




- -

8 yo has been trying for the longest time to install a css code on his friendster layout. He wanted to put in Naruto, but the css stuff we copy-paste from other writers won't work.

He's not Naruto crazy now, but instead loves another anime series, the hilarious Yamato Nadeshiko the Wallflower. He wanted Yamato as a friendster layout.

So I told him, if it still doesn't work, make one.

And he said I don't know how...

I gave hime some basic orientation on how to customize his friendster skins. I just showed him how to do some things, that he should test it, etc etc, bla bla bla....

A little later he whooped, "Whoo! I got it!"

And true enough, the faces of Suniko, Kyohei, Takenaga, Yuki and Ranmaru greeted me from friendster.



Weird how, when we were 8, our parents marveled we can read...
8year olds these days are just.... freaks!

Some dialogue for teaching math at home

8year old came home today and said he didn't understand the math lesson about division.


I always despair about the incongruity of the beauty of math, and the way it is communicated to young children. It's unfair!

Math is beautiful. Exciting. Orgasmic even, when you're older. Promise.

That is, if you're nerdy enough to look through the interesting things that mathematicians have crazily compiled through the ages. But if not, oh well...

But then, us parents with maths-anxiety find it difficult to explain math operations to our kids when they get home and do homework.

How how how carabao?


Below are some dialogue that you may try to use on your kids, see if it works that they understand. The simpler dialogue is always better, no matter what age they are. If not, games/ software may do the trick, if you find one, good luck. Timez attack (for multiplication tables) is genius!

I'm not a maths teacher so take this with a pillar of salt. bonk your head on it if you also don't get it.


Addition:
- "Put more"
- "_____ joined them"

Subtraction
- "Take away"
- "_____ went away/ left"

Multiplication:
- "adding 1st number over and over, as many times as the 2nd number
- "skip count by ___ these many times

Division:
- "Cut into groups of ____ . How many are left in each group?"
- "Subtracting over and over til you reach zero. count how many times you subtracted.

These help when you say the operations aloud as you solve examples. Give exercises using the same patterns.


Please give your examples you used at home that your kid understood easily. Share and care!

Shokey, calclueless is allowed.

Starvation is Over - Reader Shmeeder is aliiiiiver

Finally! blogger and feedburner have finally decided to feed me!

Casey's eyes have whitened from waiting for it to work, but hey,
Jen is my lucky charm...

WOOT!