Last week, it was Champee's first time to go to school. Like other parents, we tried our very best to prepare her for the big day. The plan was simple, that is to allow Champee to take a good rest on Sunday and then go up early in the morning to prepare to go to school. Murphy's law: anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Since we came from a very long weekend for the Holy Week, our simple plan got derailed. We still went out that Sunday to maximize our time with our Cebu visitors. Even our plan for that day didn't happen the way we liked it as well. We're supposed to go to mass first, do the zip line and then go for a good dinner in Tagaytay. What happened was, we got late for the mass in Tagaytay so we went out for a quick snack in mushroom burger. Good thing there's a nice playground there, making Champee super happy with the swing. Then we went to the Picnic Grove for zipline. We're expecting a lot of people going there since it's Easter, but wasn't expecting that there would be a mega-rally-like crowd. The people plus the blazing hot temperature equals not a relaxing vacation. So we ended up in a Starbucks nearby traveling miles away from home just to go to drink coffee. We ended the trip by going to mass at the Pink Sisters Convent and then went back home to have dinner at the Festival Mall in Alabang. The plan to take a rest on Sunday, didn't materialize. We even had to get up early on Monday by 5 AM from Cavite to bring our guests (Tita Tei and Tito Kevin) to the airport and then head to Champee's school in Pasig for her first day. Although she just slept the whole road trip, it's still tiring for a three-year-old baby. We were expecting a cranky girl when she woke up, but it was a miracle that she's excited to go to school and her mood was at an all-time high. Upon entering her school, she immediately hold her teacher's hand and went inside the room for their group activity. What's good was that she found a new favorite dance called the "Gummy Bear" and it was cute and fun watching her do the moves (see the YouTube video below) First Day of School Learning: Vision. When Champee went up to us saying that she wants to go to school, we were sure she's going to do good on her first day. Why? Simply because she developed that vision for herself. A goal that she wanted to do even without anyone forcing her. I'm sure she was influenced by Hi 5, Barney and Murray had a Little Lamb that sparked that idea in her young mind. So big thanks to the Disney Junior and YouTube for these great influencers :) But still she was able to hold on to that vision of finally going to school. And from that time, we scouted for nearby preschools where she can grow more mentally, physically and spiritually. After months of research we chose the Mother Goose Playskool in Greenwoods, just three kilometers away from our castle (btw this is just Champee's name for our tiny condo unit, very far from being a castle). Apart from good reviews, it was the rapport that teacher UK (pardon my spelling mam if you're reading this) built with Champee so that convinced us to enroll for summer school. First Week of School Learning: Good habits build a character. As I begin to recall my past experiences, I was able to observe that all first days of any event becomes either extremely good or extremely bad. But definitely majority of them are good or even best experiences. And when you look at the output at the end of the activity or project, the first days may have a good impact but the first attempt doesn't dictate the outcome of any activity/project. What matters are the succeeding days if they were consistently good enough to arrive at the outcome I wanted. Going back to Champee's schooling, we were happy with her first day. But I was quite anxious as to how we can make it through the succeeding days of replicating the good things that happened on her first day. As with NASA's Convex Goggles experiment, it will take 21 consecutive days to develop a habit. Meaning if we have that great first day, multiply it by 21 times, we can be assured to have a great schooling experience for Champee that could possibly last a lifetime. All the while, I just thought that we're sending Champee to school to learn. Unknowingly, I think it was me who's learning more as we found more things to fix on my fatherhood as far as sleeping routine, time management, patience, sacrifice, commitment and love. Sleeping routine - irregardless of how late I went home for work, I needed to get up before six to prepare not just breakfast now, but also her stuff for school. Time Management - I became more conscious on spending time with her since her body clock finally got corrected during the first week of school. She now takes a nap after school, goes for play in the afternoon at the playground and sleeps early by 8 or 9. That's good for her, but I don't get to spend our late night playtime sessions anymore decreasing our bonding moments. So every weekday, I made sure to have a quick play time in the morning before she takes a bath. Patience - Truly, this made me think on how my mom and dad became super patient with me when I was a toddler then. We can never really repay the hardships that our parents endure to raise us as good and oving adults. What we can always do is to pay forward these little acts of kindness even if our kids are uncooperative. For Champee, it was a struggle to have her setup for breakfast and bath time. It was really time consuming, but then again, what I observe is that there's really no other way to convince a toddler but to show that you understand where she's coming from. Then you act, then you reason, and then repeat until you can get her buy in. Doing shortcuts and losing one's temper won't really get you anywhere as what happened to us when we got late last Friday. Sometimes as adults, I realized that the easy way out was to muscle our way in to let our child finish what should be done. However, I discovered that there's always an underlying reason why our kids behave that way. And scolding them, at the height of our emotions always lead to a negative result. I think that we can only scold our kids if we are on a controlled temper so as to clear our minds of our goal to correct our baby rather than just be reactive of the rejection we got from our child.and totally miss out the opportunity of having him or her learn from him or her mistakes. Sacrifice, Commitment and Love - As a dad of a preschooler, I realized that in order to be consistent on doing something for someone, it takes sacrifice and commitment that is deeply rooted on unconditional love. I learned that as long as we made Champee feel loved, she always ends up doing the right things like for her school today, she got three smileys as she's the most behaved in her class despite being a little late today. Beyond the First Day During Champee's first day of class, her teacher requested us if she can call her Amanda (her real name is Amanda Claire)... and we said YES. And guess what Amanda means? It's "fit to be loved" Maybe as dads or moms, even if our kids didn't have a happy first day, first or second week of school, let's help our little Amanda's have the best childhood experience they can have, after all every child deserves to be loved. April 27, 2014 - Caliwag, Pasig Irregardless of age, financial status or gender, everyone can share something for those who don't have enough. As a rookie dad, I wanted Amanda to learn the value of living not just for herself but to have the genuine concern of loving others. I believe that it's one of the ways to live life to the full. And hopefully starting her young even if it seems that she doesn't understand is a way to expose her that not all kids experience the same blessings as what she has and that it's perfectly ok to aim to have more than enough blessings so that she can share them to others. So starting on her first birthday, even though she's just barely walking, we coordinated with our SFC brothers and sisters serving in Caliwag to celebrate a simple birthday with our kids there. The same went on last year and on Champee's third birthday this year, it was pretty amazing since she's able to participate in some of the activities already. Three things I've observed:
I would like to honor the brothers and sisters who helped us with Champee's birthday at Caliwag: Jhoan, Vince, Julius, Dave, Fidel, Sarah, Zaldy, Bojo, Tita Dorie, Tonton, and Jack hoping that someday, Champee will also get the same passion for serving underprivileged kids Couple of months before Champee's birthday, she got hooked on watching the demo videos for Play Doh. I realized two things... one, I thought there are weird people that are super excited to buy toys, open them in front of the camera, and then assemble and play and post to You Tube... Two, there are even more insane people watching their videos. But then, after checking their YouTube hits, they already have thousands like this one. Meaning these guys are earning good money from what they're posting. So definitely, they're not insane, just good entrepreneurs recognizing the big revenue opportunity on a seemingly simple demo video. One of the things that me and Cali were conscious on teaching Champee is her patience. This was the first time that she requested something from us and that we believe this was the perfect time to teach her the value of patience and perseverance. Being exposed to watching the Play Doh videos, she wanted to have one of her own. We told her that we can buy her that, but she'll have to wait for her birthday on April 17. So this became her birthday wish script: everytime you ask her, "When's your birthday Amanda?" She will always reply.. "April 17th"... and when asked about, "What's your wish? (ala Dibo the Gift Dragon tone)", she would promptly reply "I wish to have a Play Doh..." There were few instances that we went to toy stores when visiting the malls. And as you would guess it, it's a haven for kids and toddlers to see all the best toys displayed. But for parents, it could be their worst nightmare as you can't expect to leave those stores without swiping your credit card or your monthly budget. So when we went there, it's impossible for her not to see a single Play Doh toy. Of course she got excited, but what I'm not expecting was that her ability to understand that she'll have her turn to own one on her birthday and not black mail us by crying out loud in the store. We were happy with her reactions everytime she behaves like that. Either she's too young now to act negatively OR she understood even with her young mind the things we talked about delayed gratification. I do certainly hope it's the second one :) During the course of her waiting, we found her to be watching play doh videos during her tablet time. Maybe this is one of her secrets to cope with her wants. I know this is just a small thing to help her mold her character, but I know, planting these seeds of simple discipline can help her manage bigger issues as she grows older. As the bible puts it in James 1:3-4 "for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing". That is a parent's every dream for their child... to be able to live their lives full and complete and the only way to achieve that is to infuse in their blood stream the value of patience; To continue to persevere even with the most difficult challenges; To break through the barriers of difficulties... To remain on hoping... until you get the promise. |
AuthorI'm a technology geek, photographer, musician and a rookie dad trying out to speak my mind through writing my daily experiences as a young Pinoy dad. Archives
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